The Mongol invasions of Japan

Kublai Khan’s quests for domination in 1274 and 1281

The Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281 threatened to devastate Japanese resources and power in the region, destroying the samurai culture and the Empire of Japan entirely before a typhoon miraculously saved their last stronghold.

Though Japan entered the war between the two rival empires with strong troops of honorable samurai, the sheer brute force of their Mongol invaders pushed the noble warriors to their limits, causing them to question their own code of honor when facing these fierce combatants.

The impact of nearly two decades of fighting between its rulers will resonate throughout Japanese history, including through World War II and the very culture of modern Japan.

invasion forerunner

In 1266, the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan (1215-1294) paused in his campaign to subdue all of China and sent a message to the Emperor of Japan, addressed as “the ruler of a small country”, “advising” him to pay tribute to his court, or else his safety could not be guaranteed.

The Khan’s emissaries returned from Japan with no reply. Five times over the next six years, Kublai Khan sent his messengers; the shogun The Japanese did not even allow them to land on Honshu, the main island.

In 1271, Kublai Khan defeated the Song dynasty and declared himself the first emperor of the Song. yuan dynasty from China. grandson of Genghis Khan , ruled much of China plus Mongolia and Korea; meanwhile, his uncles and cousins ​​controlled an empire that stretched from Hungary in the west to the Pacific coast of Siberia in the east.

The big ones khans of mongol empire they did not tolerate the impudence of their neighbors, and Kublai hastened to demand an attack on Japan in 1272. However, his advisers urged him to bide his time until a proper armada of warships could be built. From 300 to 600 ships that would be ordered from shipyards in southern China and Korea, and an army of about 40,000 men. Against this mighty force, Japan could only muster about 10,000 fighters from the ranks of the clans of samurai, who often found themselves in conflict with each other. Japan’s warriors were seriously outmatched.

The first invasion, 1274

From the southern Korean port of Masan, the Mongols and their subjects launched an attack on Japan in the fall of 1274. Hundreds of large ships and an even greater number of small boats, estimated to be between 500 and 900 in number, headed toward the Sea of ​​Japan.

First, the invaders seized the islands of Tsushima and Iki, roughly halfway between the tip of the Korean peninsula and the main islands of Japan. Quickly overcoming desperate resistance from the islands’ 300 or so Japanese residents, the Mongol troops slaughtered them all and sailed east.

On November 18, the Mongolian navy reached Hakata Bay, near the present-day city of Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu. Much of our knowledge about the details of this invasion comes from a parchment which was commissioned by the samurai Takezaki Suenaga (1246-1314), who fought the Mongols in both campaigns.

Japan’s military weaknesses

Suenaga relates that the samurai army prepared to fight according to their code of bushido ; a warrior would go out, announce his name and lineage, and prepare for one-on-one combat with an enemy. Unfortunately for the Japanese, the Mongols were not familiar with the code. When a lone samurai stepped forward to challenge them, the Mongols simply attacked him en masse, just as ants attack a beetle.

To make matters worse for the Japanese, the Yuan forces also used poison-tipped arrows, catapult-launched explosive projectiles, and a shorter bow that had an accuracy twice the range of samurai longbows. Furthermore, the Mongols fought in units, rather than each man for himself. The drums transmitted the commands that guided their precisely coordinated attacks. All of this was unusual for samurai, often with fatal results.

Takezaki Suenaga and the other three warriors of his house were dismounted in the fighting, each sustaining serious injuries that day. A late charge of more than 100 Japanese reinforcements was what saved Suenaga and his men. The wounded samurai withdrew a few kilometers from the bay for the night, determined to renew their almost hopeless defense in the morning. As night fell, a strong wind and heavy rain began to lash the coast.

Close encounter with the Dominion

Unbeknownst to the Japanese defenders, the Chinese and Korean sailors aboard Kublai Khan’s ships were busy persuading the Mongol generals to allow them to weigh anchor and move further out to sea. They were concerned that strong winds and waves would run their ships aground in Hakata Bay.

The mongolians they relented and the great Armada sailed into open water, straight into the arms of an oncoming typhoon. Two days later, a third of the Yuan ships lay at the bottom of the sea, and some 13,000 of Kublai Khan’s soldiers and sailors had drowned.

The survivors returned home in disrepair, and Japan was spared from the Great Khan’s rule, for the time being. While Kublai Khan in his capital at Dadu (present-day Beijing), reflected on the misfortunes of his fleet, the samurai hoped that the bakufu in Kamakura he would reward them for their valor, but that reward never came.

Uneasy Peace: The Seven Year Interlude

Traditionally, the bakufu granted noble warriors land at the end of battle so they could relax in peacetime. However, in the case of the invasion, there was no loot to be divvied up: the invaders came from outside Japan and left no loot behind, so the bakufu had no way of paying back the thousands of samurai who had fought to fend off the invasion. the mongols. .

Takezaki Suenaga took the unusual step of traveling for two months to the Kamakura shogun’s court to plead his case in person. Suenaga was rewarded with a prize horse and property management on the island of Kyushu for his efforts. Of the approximately 10,000 samurai warriors who fought, only 120 received any reward.

This did not endear the Kamakura government to the sympathy of the vast majority of samurai, to say the least. While Suenaga was pleading his case, Kublai Khan sent a six-man delegation to demand that the Japanese Emperor travel to Dadu and prostrate himself before him. The Japanese responded by beheading the Chinese diplomats, a terrible breach of Mongolian law against emissaries.

Then Japan prepared for a second attack. Kyushu leaders took a census of all available warriors and weapons. In addition, the Kyushu landlord class was given the task of building a defensive wall around Hakata Bay, five to fifteen feet high and 25 miles long. Construction took five years with each landowner responsible for a section of the wall proportional to the size of their property.

Meanwhile, Kublai Khan established a new government division called the Ministry for the Conquest of Japan. In 1280, the ministry devised plans for a two-pronged attack the following spring, to crush the Japanese once and for all.

The second invasion, 1281

In the spring of 1281, the Japanese learned that a second Yuan invasion force was approaching. The waiting samurai sharpened their swords and prayed to Hachiman, the Shinto god of war, but Kublai Khan was determined to crush Japan this time, and he knew his defeat seven years earlier had simply been bad luck, due more to weather than to anything else. the extraordinary fighting prowess of the samurai.

With further warning about this second attack, Japan was able to muster 40,000 samurai and other fighters. They gathered behind the defensive wall in Hakata, keeping constant watch to the west.

The Mongols sent two separate forces this time: an impressive force of 900 ships containing 40,000 Korean, Chinese, and Mongolian soldiers set out from Masan, while an even larger force of 100,000 set sail from southern China in 3,500 ships. The Ministry’s plan for the Conquest of Japan called for an overwhelming coordinated attack by the combined Imperial Yuan fleets.

The Korean fleet reached Hakata Bay on June 23, 1281, but the ships from China were nowhere to be seen. The smaller division of the Yuan army was unable to break through the Japanese defensive wall, so a stationary battle developed. The samurai weakened their opponents by rowing out to the Mongol ships in small boats under cover of darkness, setting the ships on fire and attacking their troops, then rowing back to land.

These night raids demoralized the Mongol recruits, some of whom had been recently conquered and had no love for the emperor. The stalemate between the enemies lasted 50 days, while the Korean fleet waited for the long-awaited Chinese reinforcements.

On August 12, the main Mongol fleet landed west of Hakata Bay. Now, faced with a force more than three times their own, the samurai were in dire danger of being overrun and slaughtered. With little hope of survival, and with no thought of reward if they succeeded, the Japanese samurai fought with desperate bravery.

The miracle of Japan

They say truth is stranger than fiction, and in this case, it’s certainly true. Just when it seemed that the samurai would be exterminated and Japan would be crushed under the Mongol yoke, an incredible and miraculous event occurred.

On August 15, 1281, a second typhoon roared ashore on Kyushu. Of the khan’s 4,400 ships, only a few hundred managed to navigate the towering waves and fierce winds. Nearly all of the invaders were drowned in the storm, and the few thousand who made it to shore were mercilessly hunted down and exterminated by the samurai with very few returning to tell the tale in Dadu.

The Japanese believed that their gods had sent the storms to protect Japan from the Mongols. They called the two storms kamikaze, or “divine winds.” Kublai Khan seemed to agree that Japan was protected by supernatural forces, thus abandoning the idea of ​​conquering the island nation.

The consequences

For the Kamakura bakufu, however, the result was disastrous. Once again, the samurai demanded payment for the three months they had spent protecting Japan against the Mongols. Furthermore, this time the priests who had prayed for divine protection added their own demands for payment, citing typhoons as proof of the efficacy of their prayers.

The bakufu still had little to distribute, and whatever wealth they had they gave to the priests, who had more influence in the capital than the samurai. Suenaga did not even try to seek payment, instead commissioning the scroll from which most modern knowledge of this period comes as a record of his own achievements during both invasions.

Dissatisfaction with the Kamakura bakufu festered among the ranks of the samurai for the next few decades. When a strong emperor, Go-Daigo (1288-1339), rose up in 1318 and challenged the authority of the bakufu, the samurai refused to unite in defense of the military leaders.

After a complex civil war that lasted 15 years, the Kamakura bakufu was defeated and the Ashikaga Shogunate assumed power over Japan. The Ashikaga family and all other samurai passed down the story of the kamikaze, and the warriors of Japan drew strength and inspiration from the legend for centuries.