attacks from the advancing Mongols in the north of their country, a long conflict that had denuded the southern coastal area of soldiers.2 Korea therefore lay open to pillage from the seas, and the wakō took full advantage of the situation, although drought and disastrous harvests in the area of Japan that produced the pirates have also been suggested as motives for their actions. The wakō heartlands were certainly poor, and this forced their inhabitants to seek sustenance from the sea, legitimately or otherwise.3 Mounted archery would have been impossible in seaborne raids, so the wakō, even those wealthy enough to afford horses, fought on foot. Bows and arrows would still have been seen in plenty, but swords and naginata were the weapons of choice in the circumstances of a raid.
In 1223, two years after the Shōkyū War had ended, gangs of Japanese pirates launched their first attacks on Korea’s southern coast from locations on the northern coast of Kyūshū and the islands of Iki and Tsushima, which lie in the straits between the two countries. Further raids followed in 1225, 1226, and 1227, and are well documented in both Japanese and Korean sources. A Japanese description of the 1226 raid identifies the culprits as being from the “Matsuura gang” (Matsuura-tō), who were located in Hizen Province. This raid was a much larger attack than the raid by two ships noted for 1225, because “several tens of ships” were involved. Pirates from Tsushima acted as guides, and there was apparently some participation by unemployed samurai from elsewhere in Japan, the end of the Shōkyū War having left them without work. Nevertheless, so fierce was the Korean resistance that half of the raiders were killed, while the rest returned with valuables, having burned and plundered villages. In the 1227 raid, the Korean island of Koje was targeted. This time most of the pirates escaped during the night, without meeting resistance, but two of them were captured and beheaded.4 The two attacks of 1227 led to a protest from Korea, to which the authorities on Kyūshū responded positively by executing ninety pirates in the presence of Korean envoys.5
The use of the samurai sword is demonstrated by Tominori Suke’emon Masakata, his sword raised with both hands, as a brazier and charcoal are thrown at him.
Mounted combat between two samurai armed with swords. Each is wearing a horo, the ornamental cloak supposedly used as an arrow-catcher, which distinguished an important samurai, such as a messenger between allied commanders.
These executions brought the raids to a halt for over thirty years. In 1259 the wakō returned to Korea, and again in 1263 and 1266, but by then the political situation in Korea had changed dramatically. By 1259, after a succession of Mongol invasions and the flight of the Korean court, the Mongol control of Korea was virtually complete. Korea’s fate was finally to be sealed in 1273 by a dynastic marriage between the Korean crown prince and a daughter of Khubilai Khan, but by then the considerable naval resources of Korea were already at the disposal of the first Yuan (Mongol) Emperor of China, as Khubilai Khan became in 1271. It was not long before these invaders turned their attentions towards Japan, and the pirate families of Kyūshū soon found themselves wielding their swords in self-defense.
Two samurai fight the Mongols on the beach on Tsushima Island. (from a votive painting in the shrine on the site of the Battle of Kowada)
Khubilai Khan’s first approaches to Japan were diplomatic ones. In 1266 he sent two envoys on a goodwill mission. The two men passed through Korea, where they were strongly urged to abandon any plans to visit Japan, and to return to China lest they risk their lives.6 This was a reaction that may well have puzzled the Chinese, because their traditional view of the Japanese had always been a positive one. From Japan had come many an earnest seeker after truth, such as the monk Saichō (767–822), who had introduced Tendai Buddhism to Japan. In 719 the arrival of a group of envoys from Japan had occasioned the comment that Japan was a “country of gentlemen.”7
Following the failure of the 1266 embassy, a further mission was dispatched in 1269. After a year the envoy reported back to Khubilai Khan that, in his opinion, the Japanese were “cruel and bloodthirsty” and lived in “a country of thugs.”8 Japan was certainly projecting a very different image from that of the peaceful Nara period! The Japanese had, after all, experienced a century of warfare and the establishment of a warrior class, and this negative view may well have been one factor behind Khubilai Khan’s decision to subdue this unruly island empire and bring it under his sway. In addition to passing on his comments about the Japanese, the envoy had delivered Khubilai Khan’s demand for tribute from Japan, which had provoked a harsh reaction. The Japanese, who fully appreciated the threat of invasion conveyed by the demand, were placed very much on their guard, and they did not have long to wait for the outcome. Khubilai Khan gave orders to Korea to supply nine hundred ships and an army of five thousand men. The fleet that finally set sail in 1274 included fifteen thousand Yuan (Mongol) soldiers and eight thousand Koreans, together with a very large number of crewmen.9
The First Mongol Invasion
The Mongol invasions of Japan (Khubilai Khan’s army returned in 1281) provided the only occasion in over six hundred years when the samurai were fighting enemies other than themselves. The first Mongol attempt at invasion was a short-lived affair, fitting the usual Mongol pattern of sending out a reconnaissance in force prior to a major campaign. Much of their time was taken up in crossing from Korea and devastating the islands of Tsushima and Iki, the two islands that have always provided the easiest means of crossing the straits. The first landfall on Japanese territory was made on Tsushima, which lies much nearer to Korea than it does to Japan. Tsushima consists of two islands, and most of the invading force came ashore on the complex and ragged coastline between the two islands, where many safe anchorages could be found. A particularly fierce battle took place at Kowada, where a Shintō shrine now commemorates the battle.10
In charge of Tsushima’s defense was Sō Sukekuni (1207–74), the deputy shugo (governor). He appears to have risen to the occasion splendidly, although in the subsequent fierce fighting the pace was first set by the Mongols, leaving the Japanese defenders confused by the invaders’ unfamiliar tactics. The most noticeable divergence from the Japanese tradition was the way in which the Mongols advanced in large dense groups, controlled by drums and to the accompaniment of much noise. In the lively, epic words of Yamada’s retelling of the story, they:
... advanced in phalanx, which was also a novelty to the Japanese, protecting themselves most effectually with their shields.... The Mongolian shafts harassed them terribly; still all the Japanese soldiers fought according to their own etiquette of battle. A humming arrow, the sign of commencing the combat, was shot. The Mongols greeted it with a shout of derision. Then some of the best fighters among the Japanese advanced in their usual dignified, leisurely manner and formulated their traditional challenge. But the Mongol phalanx, instead of sending out a single warrior to answer the defiance, opened their ranks, enclosed each challenger, and cut him to pieces. The invaders moved in unchanging formation, obeying signals from their commanding officers.11
Yamada is, of course, making the assumption that the issuing of challenges and the seeking out of a worthy opponent were the norm in the warfare of the time—an assumption that was questioned in the previous chapter. But even if that had been the expected way to fight, surely no samurai would have been so stupid as to think that the Mongols spoke Japanese! The essential dichotomy between Japanese and Mongol tactics was that the samurai preferred to fight as individuals targeting other individuals, while the Mongols fought in dense groups. An anonymous work of the fourteenth century, called Hachiman Gudōkun, sets out precisely the problems that faced the samurai: “Calling our names to one another, as in Japanese warfare, we expected fame or ignominy to be found in contesting against individuals, but in this battle the hosts closed as one.”12
