-June 1592- near Daegu (Uiryeong County), we're backtracking a bit but it's important to talk about Gwak Jae-u, "The Red Robe General".
-When he learned that the Joseon official troops had abandoned its people, he formed a militia to fight off the Japanese.
-Tried to figure out how to stop the dangerous mobs of Japanese musketeers. He quickly noticed that the Japanese muskets took a long time to reload.
-However, the Japanese had thought of this already by having heavily armored melee soldiers guarding the musketeers to protect them as they reloaded.
-So, why didn't the Koreans just use their badass longbows? All the trained longbow archerse had either belonged to the army or had fled to the north, and there was no time to train their new archers.
-The solution? Crossbows!
-In order to acquire crossbows, Gwak Jae-u sold his aristocratic family title for quick cash and then got some militiamen to raid local armories that had been abandoned.
-With the new crossbows, his militia then took to the mountains, where they began ambushing Japanese forces on patrol. They would provoke an attack by the Japanese while under cover, and then rush forward firing their crossbows before retreating again. This was surprisingly effective, and Gwak Jae-u quickly began to amass lots of followers!
-According to one story, they tricked the Japanese into bringing a box of explosives into their camp, and then the Japanese, thinking it was either bees (based on earlier experiences with the rascally Gwak Jae-u) or gold, threw it in the fire and 100 people were killed instantly!
-Fun fact: he would smear his armor with the menstrual blood of virgins. Fucking weird.
-Anyway, as were saying, at Uiryeong the Japanese were nearby and wanted to capture the city, but they had to cross the Nam River. They decided to chill and cross it in the morning.
-Gwak Jae-u, meanwhile, was watching and plotting. As the Japanese slept, his men moved the Japanese markers they had planted to mark the shallow parts of the river, so in the morning the river seemed deeper!
-However, the Japanese, certain they had marked the river correctly, began fording the river.
-Gwak Jae-u then decided to strike! The trap worked, the Japanese panicked, and many Japanese forces were slain. After this, his reputation grew, and soon he had 1000 men in his army.
-All of this news in the south with Gwak Jae-u fucking up the supply lines really pissed off Konishi Yukinaga, who was heavily dependent on the lines to continue functioning correctly since he was all the way up in Pyongyang.
-They had some food supplies, but were running low on gunpowder, firearm supplies, shoes, medicine, and reinforcements.
-His original army had about 18,700 men, but now he was down to only 2/3 or 1/2 that number.
-This wasn't necessarily because they had been killed, but rather because they had to be left behind in garrisons or patrols.
-Also, the news he received about the south was always bad, with the guerrilla warfare problem and also Yi Sun-shin fucking up the Japanese navy in trying to clear a path and bring in reinforcements from Japan to Seoul and Pyongyang.
-Konishi began to have serious doubts about invading Ming China...Joseon was proving to be too difficult to maintain! Other officers felt the same as well.
-However, Katō Kiyomasa was still down for invading the Chinese. It's likely that he underestimated how difficult it would be to pacify the Hamgyeong Province in the northeast.
-The people of Hamgyeong Province may have been living as Joseon subjects, but they were old-school, rugged, and tough. They were mountain people, and badass warriors. They also disliked the Joseon government, as they were taxed heavily and probably just wanted to be left alone.
-Anyway, Katō was able to acquire an interpreter and a guide began to march into Hamgyeong Province with 20,000 men.
-The commander of Hamgyeong's southern forces, I Hoon, fled north. Katō reached the east coast before heading north and sacking coastal villages, including the provincial capital of Hamhung.
-The Japanese finally encountered resistance at Seongjin, where the northeast Hamgyeung Province army commander Han Gug-ham had gathered an opposition force from the garrisoned troops on the frontier, some of the fiercest Joseon troops.
-They actually managed to fuck up the Japanese to the point that the Japanese had to retreat into the city of Seongjin itself. The Koreans tried to mount a cavalry rush and take the city, but this proved to be a dumb move.
-The Joseon army retreated to a nearby mountain, where Katō then sent his troops to mount a counterattack.
-Unfortunately for the Koreans, they were caught off guard and were slaughtered, and commander Han Gug-ham was eventually captured.
-The Japanese then set up a new provincial capital at Gil-joo (Kilju). He garrisoned half his troops there, then pushed north.
-Meanwhile, the Joseon princes Imhae and Sunhwa, who had fled to the countryside, ended up in the backwater, sketchy-as-fuck town of Hoiryeong (on the Tumen River, nowadays one of the borders between North Korea and China).
-The town had actually recently had a revolt and thrown out the Joseon officials, raised a militia of over 500 men, and were friendly towards the Japanese due to an intense hatred of the Joseon government.
-They were more than happy to capture and imprison the princes when they arrived.
-When Katō arrived in the town, the people turned over the princes to him.
-At this point, Katō realized that he had an opportunity for glory should he successfully invade into Manchuria. He decided to take it, with 3000 new warriors from Hoiryeong at his side (11,000 in total now).
-Katō then began to go forth, and it was there that they crossed the Tumen River into Manchuria and encountered a Jurchen fortress! Uh-oh. Katō was now fucking around with the powerful Jurchen hordes. Needless to say, the Jurchen were a formidable fighting force, and with 10,000 warriors were able to repel Katō's forces in a brutal battle.
-After this, Katō didn't bother venturing back into Manchuria, and instead just spent his time hunting tigers :(
-At this point bro had marched like 1500 km!
-On his way back to the south, he left control of the conquered towns in the north with the Joseon elites who were in his pocket.
-However, the people of Hamgyeong Province were pretty hardcore in their disdain for authority, so once Katō left they immediately began to rebel!
-Meanwhile, back on the Yalu River, Ming General Zu Chengxun (and others) were crossing the river and coming to Joseon's rescue.
-July 26- Ming forces link up with King Seonjo, and then they headed to Uiju (in North Pyongan Province), on the border with Manchuria.
-This was the last refuge of the Joseon government. From here, King Seonjo spammed messengers to the Ming asking for aid. However, the Ming had their own issues, so they couldn't send more help immediately.
-All Joseon had were the Ming reinforcements (~6000 soldiers) led by Generals Shi Ru and Zu Chengxun, and their own troops (number is unclear) led by General Ryu Song-ryong, but the Chinese were confident that they could drive out the Japanese.
-Meanwhile in Japan, Hideyoshi began to learn about the brutal losses the Japanese naval forces were experiencing due to the fierce ingenuity of Yi Sun-shin.
-Deciding enough was enough, he issued a command to his top naval commanders, Wakisaka Yasuharu, Kuki Yoshitaka, and Katō Yoshiaki to link up in Busan and form a joint naval force to crush the Joseon navy.
-They were supposed to be in Busan to begin with, but because they had believed that they had already crushed the Joseon navy, these dudes were all in Seoul!
-Meanwhile, Yi Sun-shin knew that something was up. He sent for Yi Eok-gi and Won Gyun to join him, and they joined up and began practicing the new "crane's wing" battle formation, in which they would surround a charging offense with a curve of defending ships.
-Actually, this may have been borrowed from a Japanese samurai tactic on land that had been in practice for a long time already.
-Embarrassingly, Won Gyun only brought 7 ships with him, even though he had over a month to prepare! This obviously pissed off Yi Sun-shin to no end, as they only had like 54 panokseons and a few gobukseons.
-Eager to get glory for himself, Wakizaka Yasuharu headed out to take on the Joseon navy by himself, with 73 ships (36 atakebune, 24 sekibune, and 13 scout kobaya ships).
-When they finally clashed, it was the Battle of Hansan Island (July 8, 1592).
-Difficult place to do the crane formation due ot it being too small of an area, but Yi Sun-shin realized that if he could lure them into a more open area, they could do it.
-The plan worked, and the Japanese took the bait! They were able to surround the Japanese ships with the crane's wing formation.
-However, the crane's wing was not entirely successful, and the Japanese were able to drive forward and enter into close-range combat, a nightmare scenario for Yi Sun-shin!
-What ultimately saved the day were the gobukseon ships (of course), which really fucked up the Japanese ships and proved to be impossible to catch on fire on invade.
-The aftermath: Wakisaka Yasuharu was forced to flee, and only a few of his ships made it back to Busan! Also, although many Joseon soldiers had been killed, they lost zero ships! Additionally, many Joseon prisoners who were being held captive on the Japanese ships were freed.
-Yi Sun-shin then mounted a counterattack on Angolpo, but the Japanese naval commanders had wised up to Yi Sun-shin's strategy so it proved to be a more difficult challenge for him. However, due to their superior firepower, they were able to to trap the Japanese ships under fire in the harbor. They even almost destroyed Hideyoshi's flagship Nippon Maru, which was docked in the harbor.
-This was also a big deal because it meant that the Japanese couldn't establish a supply link to their forces in the north.
-By August 1592, about 22,000 Joseon guerrilla fighters had sprung up across the peninsula, fighting the Japanese.
-Called "righteous armies" (의병), they were mobilized by the yangban to fight.
-They continued to attack supply lines and invade small towns and cities occupied by the Japanese. Even monks were fighting to defend the land!
-In return, the Japanese brutalized the countryside by raping, torturing, and executing everyone, and putting entire villages to the torch.
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