The War in Korea, 1637
"When wisdom comes from Seoul."-Korean expression, equivalent to the Terranovan 'when pigs fly'.
The winter of 1636-37 is much quieter than the previous winter. There are skirmishes and probes and raids, but nothing that significantly alters the dynamics on the ground. For both sides the main concern is that of supply.
The allied supply lines are free from harassment save from the occasional bandit or Chinese raid but the demand for food and equipment is still prodigious. The fighting is taking place in the north while most of the food in Korea is grown in the south, and neither the Koreans nor the Japanese have much experience or organization for mass logistics. The Koreans in the Jurchen campaigns fielded high-quality mobile armies, but small ones. The Japanese are more used to mass armies, but that was done for shorter durations in their home islands, where the need for ground transport was minimal. Large wagon trains are not simple things to organize, and one axle busting in a bad place can jam up the whole train for a day if it turns out one misplaced the spare parts and/or tools.
The Chinese on the other hand are quite experienced at the logistics of mass armies, having cut their teeth in the battles for northern China. They know all the equipment, and in what quantities, that are needed to keep supplies flowing and have their re-conquest organization still in place with the same experienced officials. Accidents, mistakes, and simple bad luck can and do happen, but the key in war isn’t to be perfect, which is an impossibility, but to make fewer mistakes than the other side. When it comes to logistics, the Chinese are absolutely the side making the fewest mistakes.
On the other hand, the Chinese supply lines are under constant harassment from the various Righteous Armies. The most substantial operations during the winter are by Chinese units against some of these Righteous Armies. If the Koreans are caught in the open, the Chinese invariably win, but the Koreans are mostly successful in avoiding a field battle.
Nevertheless the Chinese pressure on the Righteous Armies keeps them from attacking the Chinese supply lines so much, albeit at the cost of sucking away vital manpower. During the winter that is acceptable but will be a serious problem come the resumption of active campaigning. To avoid the issue, Li Rusong spends much of the winter wooing the Jurchen clans with the Luoyang court supporting him. By spring several have been brought into the Chinese orbit, providing cavalry to guard the Chinese supply lines and letting Li use his Chinese troops for the advance.
Even with Jurchen support and Chinese experience, Li’s logistics are still shaky. Plus given the successes of the allied navy, he doesn’t want to be completely dependent on seaborne supplies. That means instead of flooding the area with huge numbers of men and animals that need to be fed, like the Japanese expedition, Li has concentrated on making his men as individually dangerous as possible instead. “I need no more swords or spears or bows, but muskets, muskets, and more muskets,” Li is reported to have said. By spring, at least 6000 of his troops are armed with a flintlock musket and ring ambrolar combination that is copied from an Ottoman example sent via the Silk Road. The Ottoman weapon is itself a copy of the Roman D3 musket; after capturing models in Syria the Ottomans immediately began making their own.
Far more immediately obvious is the storm of artillery Li Rusong unleashes, 330 cannons to the 130 allied pieces. The sheer firepower smashes apart the defensive line, the best Chinese troops racing into the gaps, not to seize territory but make havoc, snarling Konishi’s efforts to restore his position. Badly mauled, the allied army gives way, retreating back down the road to Kaesong, the Chinese slashing at the rear. A Roman attaché, a veteran of the Danube campaign, is reminded of the German retreat from Ruse, where a Korean rearguard manages, at the cost of its own near-annihilation, to keep the pursuers at bay.
Not wanting to be pinned down, Konishi reinforces the Kaesong garrison but pulls back to Panmunjom with the bulk of his army. Kaesong is well manned and equipped for a siege, with plentiful provisions, powder, and artillery, but that is at the expense of the field army. Many invaluable stores had been lost at the Yesong, while all that can be spared was deposited in Kaesong. To stay in the field, the allied army desperately needs new kit.
Due to the urgency, sea transport is the only option, with vessels sailing from southern Korea and Japan to the mouth of the Imjin River, carrying everything from rice to bullets to shoes. Much to Yi Sun-sin’s frustration, he is again tied down to convoy duty, escorting the slow transports on their hauls rather than hunting the enemy as he would prefer. A few scattered attacks on the convoy achieve little save to scare allied command, which continues to deny Yi permission to go on the offensive as a result.
Li is most grateful as he has issues of his own. There was a limit to how much he was able to stockpile over the winter and the mass artillery barrage used up much of the gunpowder he’d already accumulated. Lacking the firepower he had at the Yesong, his initial assault on Kaesong, despite the low morale of the garrison, is hurled back with over a thousand casualties. Again he is forced to settle down into a siege of the stubborn city, Chinese supply ships putting in at Haeju with their essential cargoes.
Even the relatively short land route from Haeju to Kaesong is threatened by Korean partisans holed up in the Molak Mountains, but those by themselves are manageable from the Chinese perspective.
As are the raids on the seaborne part of the supply lines. Yi Sun-sin’s fleet is mostly locked down in convoying, but he finds an outlet for his aggressiveness by letting loose the Roman ships. In Seoul, King Danjong and the court are mostly concerned with the actions of the Koreans under Yi’s command; they have little authority over or ability to punish the Roman portion of the fleet. The Japanese, on the other hand, after asking for the ships, feel it would be best for the Romans to decide the best way they should be used, so long as they be used. Considering the Roman-Spanish battles off Java, there is some concern that if they don’t let the Romans act aggressively, the Romans might decide to vacate the theater. The Romans, after all, have little stake in the fight save to keep the goodwill of the Japanese. (Japanese ships are, like the Koreans, tied down in convoy escort duty because of Osaka’s concerns for the vulnerable transports.)
Most of the Chinese vessels are sailing in convoys too big and well-armed to be attacked by the comparatively few Roman ships. The Romans concentrate on snapping at isolated ships and raiding coastal detachments, on a few occasions landing equipment for Righteous Armies or even raiding parties. The most notable successes are scored by Leo Kalomeros and the
Octopus. Happening on the remnants of a convoy that had been scattered by a storm, in a three day spree off Sochong Island he captures or sinks six Chinese junks, two of them well-armed escorts.
Despite these small victories, they are still pinpricks to the Chinese, painful but nowhere near fatal. Yi has over a hundred and eighty panokseons at his command, but the raids are by a mere eleven Roman ships, soon reduced to nine. A fifth-rater hits an underwater rock and sinks with the loss of all her equipment, a particularly heavy blow even though the crew is saved. Two weeks later a Roman fregata gets pinned up against Cho Island by five war-junks and is blasted to pieces.
The Romans on the spot also have their hands tied by orders from their superior, the Katepano of Pyrgos. The Katepano sent the ships to retain the goodwill of the Japanese Emperor, but he does not want to risk the ire of the Chinese Emperor either by too brazenly helping the Japanese. The Roman ships can fight in Japanese and Korean waters, but are not to wage war in Chinese waters (and in the brief, the Liaodong is considered Chinese). With proposed attacks on the Chinese coast thus mooted, the Roman fourth-raters, the most powerful warships north of Borneo but too slow for raiding, are left without a clear mission and stuck on convoy duty along with the panokseons.
Meanwhile the fighting around Kaesong is intense. After resupplying his army, Konishi probes the Chinese siege lines but an early probe is ambushed and cut to pieces. Alarmed, Seoul orders him to stay on the defensive, rather than the big push to relieve Kaesong that Konishi had been planning. As the Korean portion of the army increases (Korean reinforcements are arriving but not Japanese ones) and since he is dependent almost entirely on the Koreans for logistics, despite Konishi’s status as Supreme Allied Commander he is forced to listen when Seoul speaks. After the debacle at Anshan and all the repercussions, the wisdom at Seoul is to not commit to any large battles but to rely on harassment and defensive fighting.
Under relentless attack with no sign of relief and a growing belief that they have been abandoned to die, the morale of the Kaesong garrison gives out as their rations do. After a two-month siege they surrender to Li Rusong, who treats them well and parades them through the Chinese-controlled settlements of northern Korea. The stories of the good treatment from Li Rusong in contrast to the lack of support from Seoul that seems content to leave them as meat shields has some effect, as a few Righteous Armies take the pardon offered by Li Rusong to disband.
With Kaesong in his hands, Li marches on the Imjin River line. Konishi stands to the defensive, but unleashes a few cavalry raids behind the Chinese lines, mainly to encourage the remaining Righteous Armies. While the attacks on the Chinese are easily beaten off by the superior Chinese cavalry, they do succeed in their main goal of getting some equipment to the Righteous Armies and boosting their morale. But to Konishi’s rage he receives a rebuke from Seoul. Even doing that token offensive work is apparently too much for King Danjong and his court.
The Korean court is blindsided on September 3 when a combined message arrives from Konishi, Yi Sun-sin, and the Roman naval commander, although if they’d been paying closer attention to their mood they could not have been shocked. All are absolutely outraged at the restrictions imposed on them and demand to be let loose. Yi, as a Korean subject, is very diplomatic, but the Japanese and Romans are decidedly less so. The Romans go so far as to threaten to withdraw their naval forces. Their fourth-raters are wasted here but are needed in Java. Given Konishi’s own displeasure, such a threat is much less damaging to Roman-Japanese goodwill as it would’ve been even a few weeks earlier. Stunned, the Korean court gives way.
Ironically, Konishi for his part remains on the defensive, blocking Li’s advance across the Imjin but doing no more than raiding and supporting the Righteous Armies. Right now the plan is only for the navy to attack, but a joint protest from both the army and navy undoubtedly had a much greater impact on the Seoul court than just one from Yi. Yi, in contrast, gathers the full force of the fleet, some 217 warships of varying types and sizes, and sails toward Haeju Bay.
The Chinese fleet, which comprises the bulk of Zeng naval strength, opposing him is slightly larger, mustering 262 warships of varying types and sizes. For a time there is a standoff as Yi tries to lure the Chinese out into deeper waters while the new Chinese commander, wise to Yi’s tactics from last year, declines. But the Chinese cannot remain quiescent for long; with Yi in Haeju Bay, Li’s supply line is effectively cut.
On September 15, with the wind at their backs, the Chinese finally sally out. Yi’s battle array is similar to his previous battles, with the Roman ships in the center and panokseons and Japanese ships on the wings, both sides in a west-east line with the Chinese to the north. As the Chinese approach, the panokseons begin maneuvering to take the enemy in the flanks, the Chinese extending their line to avoid that outcome.
As the Chinese line thins, the panokseons on the wings suddenly swivel and charge into, rather than around, the Chinese fleet, each wing punching through and isolating the Chinese fleet into three sections. Disordered and confused, the Chinese response is as fragmented as their fleet. The Chinese admiral in the central section orders the west and east sections to wheel inward and cut the Koreans in half in their turn, but the two sections either fail to see or ignore his commands.
The east Chinese section, faced with only distant cannonading from the enemy on one side and the open sea on the other, makes a break for it and escapes intact. The west section is more tightly pressed, pinned between the Korean coast on the one hand and shorter-range enemy barrages on the other. However the allies are focused mainly on the central section, allowing the western ships to squeeze through the gap albeit with serious losses. The central section, completely surrounded by the enemy, is pounded to pieces over the course of the afternoon and annihilated.
The battle of Haeju Bay is far from a complete sweep; 159 Chinese ships escape and regroup at the port of Nampo. But it is a battered and demoralized fleet that has also lost its largest and most powerful warships which had been concentrated in the center. Allied losses of twenty panokseons, four Japanese vessels, and a Roman fifth-rate that is shot up so badly that it is dismantled rather than repaired, plus another thirty ships damaged, are heavy but well worth the price. To compound the Chinese pain, a supply convoy sails in Haeju Bay on September 20th ignorant of the battle and is snapped up by the allied fleet.
When he receives the news of Haeju Bay, Li Rusong knows his offensive is done. Badly wrecked Kaesong would make for a poor forward base and maintaining supply lines entirely bad land that far south against Righteous Armies near impossible. Grimly, he begins a march north, the allied army following but cautiously.
Li halts his retreat at the Taesong River, which means he keeps control of Pyongyang and the port of Nampo, which now functions as a new northern version of Haeju port. Konishi attempts to break through the Chinese lines and take Pyongyang, but he is now suffering from supply issues. The area between Pyongyang and Kaesong has been ravaged by fighting and Chinese requisitions, leaving nothing for the allied troops. In contrast, Li’s logistics have improved somewhat with a convoy arriving in Nampo and shorter land lines that are easier to protect.
Yi attempts to blockade Nampo and force another battle to finish what he started, but while the fleet is rounding Changsan Cape a storm brews up and batters the flotilla enough that he reluctantly turns around back to Inchon. With that, active campaigning ceases for the year although small raids, ambuscades, and skirmishes continue.
The Jingtai Emperor and the Luoyang court are far from pleased at the news from Korea, but again they place the blame on the navy rather than Li Rusong. After the battle of Haeju Bay, the opinion of the Luoyang court is now divided. Subduing the whole Korean peninsula is clearly impossible, but some feel that a Pyongyang commandery in the north is still possible and would help compensate for the costs of the war. Others feel that Korea should be abandoned; the main prize Liaodong has already been secured and all forces should be sent to protect that. However even those who favor pulling out of Korea fear that doing so will open the possibility of yet another foreign invasion of China. As long as Li and his army are in Pyongyang that will not happen. So for now the Chinese army in Korea remains where it is. The Koreans, meanwhile, are committed to driving the Chinese completely out of the peninsula. The war will continue.