In 1592 the Japanese launched a massive invasion of the Korean Peninsula. The Japanese leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi believed that Korea would submit without much of a fight and that his army would very quickly move on to the real target, the capital of Ming China. Six years later the Japanese were still fighting in Korea. What the Koreans call the Imjin War has recently been redubbed the Great East Asian War by scholars in recognition of it’s truly massive scope. Based on the sheer number of soldiers involved this was the largest war fought anywhere in the word in the 1500’s. But despite that this conflict has remained relatively obscure outside of Korea. Why? Tune-in and find out how eager to please sandal-bearers, Huck Finn, and the most convoluted title for a leader in history all play a role in the story.

Works Cited

Haboush, JaHyun Kim. The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation. Edited by William Joseph Haboush and Jisoo M. Kim, Columbia University Press, 2016.

Hawley, Samuel Jay. The Imjin War : Japan’s Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China. 1st ed., Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch, 2005.

Hwang, Kyung Moon. A History of Korea : An Episodic Narrative. 2nd edition.,Palgrave, 2017.

Lee, Peter H. “The ‘Imjin Nok’, or the ‘Record of the Black Dragon Year’: An Introduction.” Korean Studies, vol. 14, 1990, pp. 50–83. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23717863. Accessed 17 Apr. 2024.

Lewis, James Bryant, editor. The East Asian War, 1592-1598 : International Relations, Violence and Memory. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2015.

Nam-lin Hur(허남린). “Works in English on the Imjin War and the Challenge of Research.” International Journal of Korean History, vol. 18, no. 2, 2013, pp. 53–80.

Swope, Kenneth. A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail : Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592-1598. University of Oklahoma Press, 2009.

Swope, Kenneth M. “PERSPECTIVES ON THE IMJIN WAR.” The Journal of Korean Studies, vol. 12, no. 1, 2007, pp. 154–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41490237. Accessed 17 Apr. 2024.