jars in various sizes, all of them hastily and crudely made, which hints at the rapid, if not rushed, pace of the Khan’s mobilization for the invasion. So, too, do the anchor stones. Chinese anchor stones of the period are usually large, well-carved, single stones that were set into the body of the stock to weight the anchor. Examples may be found on display in the Hakozaki Shrine in Fukuoka and at Setaura on Iki. Those found at Takashima are only roughly finished and made of two stones. More easily and quickly completed than their longer, more finished counterparts, they are not as strong as the single-stone anchors. It may be that these hastily fabricated anchors contributed to the fleet’s demise in the famous storm that dashed Khubilai’s hopes for the conquest of Japan (see the following section).
As the advancing Mongols came within bowshot, Shoni Kagesuke suddenly turned in his saddle and sent a well-aimed arrow into the Mongol leader. This scene is depicted on the side of the memorial to the heroes of the Mongol Invasions, in Hakata.
The weapons recovered from the site included bundles of iron arrow-tips or crossbow bolts, spearheads, and more than eighty swords. But the most exciting finds were the ceramic projectile bombs, of which six were recovered from the wreck. Some are filled with gunpowder, others with iron shards also, just as we would expect from the Chinese sources.21
The Second Mongol Invasion
The Mongol invaders returned to Japan in 1281, and this time they were determined both to conquer and occupy the country, as evidenced by the inclusion of farm implements on board the invasion fleet.22 The vanguard of the force attacked Tsushima and Iki and then attempted to land in Hakata Bay. As before, the ferocity of the Japanese defense forced them back, but the Mongols established themselves on two islands in the bay, one of which, Shiga, was connected to the mainland by a narrow spit of land. From these islands they launched attacks against the Japanese for about a week.
The Japanese responded with night raids against the Mongol ships. The small boats, holding between ten and fifteen samurai, would close with a Mongol ship under cover of darkness, and lower their own masts to make bridges for boarding. The samurai would then engage in hand-to-hand fighting with their swords. On one occasion, thirty samurai swam out to a Mongol ship, decapitated the entire crew, and then swam back. Two renowned heroes of these raids hailed from local families who were firmly associated with pirate activities: Kusano Jirō led a raid in broad daylight and set fire to a ship even though his left arm was cut off, while Kōno Michiari also led a daytime raid with two boats. Thinking the Japanese were coming to surrender, the Mongols allowed them to come close, at which point they were boarded and a high-ranking general was captured. Attempts were also made to dislodge the Mongols from Shiga island.
The Mongol response to the raids was to stretch chains between their ships and throw stones with catapults to sink the Japanese vessels. But at the end of this phase of the invasion, the bravery of the samurai, unaided by any storm, led the Mongol fleet to withdraw to Iki Island, there to await the arrival of the southern Chinese contingent, which made up the second phase of the invasion. By the early part of the following month, this huge armada had begun arriving at various parts of the Japanese coast, from the Gotō islands around to the west to Hakata. They eventually made rendezvous to the south of Iki, near the island of Takashima, where the Japanese launched a bold raid that deserves the title of the Battle of Takashima. The fighting lasted a full day and night, but the Japanese were eventually driven off by sheer weight of numbers. A massive attack on Hakata Bay now looked inevitable, but it never happened.
Within days of the Japanese attack at Takashima, a typhoon blew up, and was devastating in its effects. Korean casualties were 7,592 out of 26,989 men, nearly 30 percent, but the Mongol and Chinese figures were much higher, between 60 and 90 percent. Forced by the Japanese raids to stay in their ships, and unable to drop anchor in protected harbor waters, the Mongol fleet was obliterated. Tens of thousands of men were left behind with the wreckage as the remains of the fleet headed home, and most of these were killed in Japanese attacks over the following few days. The typhoon became known as the kamikaze (divine wind), sent by the sun goddess to aid her people.23 It was this term, kamikaze, that the suicide pilots of World War II adopted as their title, thus identifying themselves with the successful destruction of an invader.
Decisive though the typhoon was, it would have been minimal in its effectiveness if the determination and fighting qualities of the samurai had not forced the entire fleet to lie at anchor with all their armies on board, unable to establish a beachhead. The kamikaze has tended to overshadow such achievements, but there are many recorded examples of superlative samurai archery and swordsman-ship defeating Mongol forces.
Swordsmanship is most evident in the “little ship” raids at Takashima, but on land, traditional samurai horseback archery was still much preferred. A good example of the latter is provided by the action fought by three generations of the Shōni family on Kyūshū and Iki. Shōni Kakuie was the governor of Dazaifu, and was in charge of a combined operation during the second invasion of 1281. The Japanese aim was to push the Mongol fleet further out into the bay by seaborne attack, while a mounted army speedily reinforced the coastal area, where a detachment of the Mongol army was expected to attempt its next landing. The arrival of the Shōni force put great heart into the defenders, who rallied to the attack, but there was a grave danger of the Japanese army being surrounded by the vastly larger Mongol force, who poured their customary showers of arrows down upon them. At this point Kakuie’s nineteen-year-old grandson, Suketoki, with supreme confidence, rode up to the Mongol lines where he had spotted a person who was obviously of very senior rank. Suketoki shouted out his name, put an arrow to his bow, and, without waiting for a reply, shot the Mongol general clean through the chest.
This triumph provided just the inspiration the Japanese had been looking for, and proud grandfather Shōni Kakuie led the samurai in a charge into the midst of the Mongols, whereupon fierce hand-to-hand fighting took place. The battle continued until nearly dark, when Kakuie withdrew his troops to the safety of the Japanese fortified lines. One by one the stragglers withdrew, until only the contingent commanded by Kakuie’s son Kagesuke was left, and they were being pursued vigorously by a number of Mongol horsemen led by another general. As they came within bowshot, Shōni Kagesuke suddenly turned in his saddle and sent a well-aimed arrow into the Mongol leader.24
The next battle took place as the Mongols regrouped on the island of Iki, where the grandson, Shōni Suketoki, had his domain. A fierce fight with the retreating Mongols took place at Setanoura on the eastern coat of the island. Here Shōni Suketoki fought bravely to the last, and is commemorated on Iki as the island’s other great hero of the resistance against the Mongols. Like Taira Kagetaka, Suketoki has a shrine dedicated to him, and his fine equestrian statue stands in front of one of Iki’s main harbors.
The experience of defeating the Mongols was one never to be forgotten, and the exploits of the Kyūshū warriors joined those of their ancestors in the amalgam of myth and tradition that was to carry their memory through another six centuries. But we look in vain to discern any real changes in the techniques of combat as a direct result of the experience. Even though the samurai had been faced in 1274 with an alien enemy with alien ways, the traditional ways of fighting as horseback archers had been found to be sufficient in most circumstances. Evidence for this is provided by the design of the stone wall around Hakata Bay, erected in anticipation of the Mongols’ return. The wall sloped down gradually at its rear so that horses could be ridden up it.
There may, however, have been a fresh realization that different styles of fighting and behavior might have to be adopted at times. For example, the “little ship” raids of the 1281 invasion used fighting techniques profoundly different from those developed for a force of mounted archers. The ship-to-ship fighting required good swordsmanship, and it may perhaps have been Japan’s good fortune that the men who bore the brunt of the Mongol incursions were the same impoverished warriors of Kyūshū who had so recently exported their sword-fighting
