The fierce resistance on the beaches of Hakata Bay and the cataclysmic encounters with typhoons
- later known as the kamikaze - stand tall in the popular memory of the Mongol invasions
of Japan both within and outside of the country.
Having covered the course of the two invasion attempts previously, we will now cover the
first clash between Mongol horse archers and Samurai warriors, and their spirited defence
of the islands of Tsushima and Iki.
By the way, we have a podcast covering the history of the Mongols, the links are in the
description.
Shoutout to March of Empires for sponsoring this video!
March of Empires is a free to download medieval MMO war strategy game where you can build
your own empire!
It is perfect for the fans of history, wargaming, clan vs clan PVP and MMO strategies.
Players can build thriving kingdom, fortify their castle, fuel a massive army and build
an entire empire.
The game allows you to delve into the past as a Highland King, Northern Tsar or Desert
Sultan and wage constant war for real territorial conquest!
And now it has a huge summer update called Wings of Liberty, which introduces the Pursuit
of Liberty event, where all players will work together to unlock powerful boosts for everyone
and overcome the monstrous Boss in the final stage!
Feel the glory of the celebrations in the returning “Freedom`s Stand” narrative
event and win an exclusive chest full with thematic equipment!
New players are protected from high level attacks.
Support our channel and build your empire by downloading now through the link in the
description!
The island of Tsushima is situated between the southern coast of Korea and the Japanese
island of Kyushu.
Only a short distance from Korea, Tsushima was a prominent base for Japanese pirates
to raid Korea, known as wakō.
As Tsushima itself was mountainous with little arable land, many turned to providing for
themselves on the sea, either through fishing or making the short trip to Korea.
In the thirteenth century the raiders found Korea a particularly vulnerable target, as
the kingdom suffered continuously from a far more fearsome enemy: Mongol horsemen of the
Great Khan.
Over a thirty-year period, Mongol forces repeatedly invaded Korea, and the Korean King Gojong
was forced to seek refuge on an island.
During this destabilization, Japanese pirates attacked Korea several times, though these
attacks ended by the time King Gojong made peace with the Mongols in 1259.
It is these attacks which first brought the Japanese, and Tsushima itself, to Mongol attention,
alongside rumours of the great wealth of the Japanese monarchs.
When the new Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan began sending envoys to Japan in the 1260s, demanding
they accept his Heaven ordained rule, Tsushima’s close proximity to Korea made it a natural
stopover for the Khan’s messengers.
However, the Japanese government, the Kamakura Bakufu under Hojo Tokimune, repeatedly refused
to even see Kublai’s envoys.
One returning group of frustrated envoys in 1269 captured two fishermen from Tsushima,
Tojiro and Yashiro.
The two were brought all the way back to the court of Kublai.
There, the most powerful single individual on the planet entertained two humble fishermen,
showing off his grandeur and demanding that, upon their return, they would tell Hojo Tokimune
to show him proper respect, that the Khan wished only to have the Japanese King at his
court, and to bequeath his fame to posterity.
On returning to Japan, the fishermen found no more success than Kublai’s official envoys
did.
The continued diplomatic offenses were not forgotten, and Kublai’s pretensions only
increased with the declaration of the Yuan Dynasty in 1271.
With the fall of the key Song Dynasty stronghold of Xiangyang, preparations soon followed for
an invasion fleet against Japan.
On the 2nd of November 1274 an armada of perhaps 20,000 Mongols, Northern Chinese, Jurchen,
Khitans, and Korean soldiers and sailors aboard nearly 1,000 ships set out from Happ’o on
Korea’s southern coast.
Tsushima was where the hammer blow would strike first.
By the evening of November 4th, the defenders spotted the Mongol fleet off the Tsushima
coast.
Lacking naval powers beyond their small pirate and fishing vessels, the Japanese had no way
to harry the Mongols at sea.
Tsushima was at that time controlled by the Sō clan, whose head, Sō Sukekuni, was the
deputy shugo, military governor, of the island.
According to the Hachiman Gudokun, a Japanese source written soon after the invasion, on
Tsushima there was a shrine to Hachiman, the Japanese god of war.
Tradition holds that on the day the Mongol fleet neared Tsushima, a fire broke out at
Hachiman’s shrine - a foreboding omen.
The fire was extinguished, and white doves were seen gathering on the roof of the shrine.
As doves were the messengers of Hachiman, Sukekuni interpreted it as a warning from
Hachiman: for why else would the god set fire to his own shrine?
Some modern authors have interpreted this as the doves having caused the fire, perhaps
from incendiaries tied to them and hence, the opening salvo in the Mongol attack upon
the island.
Either way, news reached Sukekuni that a massive fleet was approaching.
Sukekuni rallied his forces: some 80 mounted Samurai and their retainers.
He led them through the night over rough terrain to set up on the beach of Komoda, and prepare
for the dawn.
As the Yuan fleet neared Komoda beach early on the morning of November 5th, Sukekuni sent
a small vessel out to inquire as to the purpose of their arrival.
With the bakufu having rebuffed the Great Khan’s envoys repeatedly, the time was well
past for talk.
Sukekuni knew chances of victory against such a massive force were non-existent, yet lined
the defenders of Tsushima up for battle all the same as the smaller enemy landing craft
neared the shore.
The primary weapon of the samurai was the bow, their valuable and iconic yumi, with
which each warrior was highly skilled.
Like the Mongols, the Samurai fought as mounted archers, though their maneuvers on horseback
could not compare to steppe nomads born into the saddle.
The wealthiest samurai were well protected in their colourful and distinctive yoroi,
though on a poorer island like Tsushima few of the 80 samurai gathered by Sukekuni would
be so well armoured.
For sidearms, Sukekuni’s warriors had their single curved blades, the predecessors of
the famous katana, while the remainder of his forces were armed with little beyond spears
and naginata.
In contrast, the forces sent against him were varied, commanded by the Mongol general Ho-tan.
Most of the infantry Ho-tan threw against Sukekuni were Chinese and Korean levies raised
by the Khan, armed with spears, large wicker or bamboo shields, and protected by cloth
and gambeson-like armours.
As per Mongol tactics, these troops considered most expendable were sent in the first waves,
soaking up enemy arrows while the more valuable Khitan, Jurchen, Turkic and Mongol horse archers
disembarked from the ships.
Generally lightly armoured but highly experienced, their composite bows made them a deadly counter
to the samurai.
The sea voyage and need to lead their horses from the landing craft meant they could only
slowly get into their formations, preventing them from immediately trying to outflank their
enemies as was their usual practice.
While the Mongols readied their horses, the Korean and Northern Chinese troops were sent
against the samurai.
Per Samurai tradition, battle began with a whistling arrow sent high into the air; per
Mongol tradition, drums marked the start of their own advance.
Sukekuni’s skilled archers took a heavy toll on the foe marching up the beach.
As the Yuan forces neared them, challenges for single combat by the Samurai went unanswered
by the Chinese and Koreans, marching as they were behind rather un-samurai-like large shields.
Unused to the press[ure?] and greatly outnumbered, Sukekuni pulled his men back to the treeline
where the Yuan advance was slowed.
Here, the swordsmanship of the samurai made itself known.
One of Sukekuni’s closest comrades, Saito Sukesada, brought down several of the Yuan
soldiers and one senior Mongol officer.
Standing over the fallen officer, Sukesada shouted threats at the Mongols, calling on
any who dared face him in battle.
The Mongols responded with arrows, three of which pierced the armour of Sukesada’s chest
and ended him.
In the tradition held in the history of the Sō family, seeing the doom that awaited them,
Sō Sukekuni loosed the remainder of his arrows into the Yuan, and led one final futile cavalry
charge into his foe.
In the end the defenders were slaughtered, leaving the island open to the Mongols, and
over the following week Tsushima was overrun.
Towns were burnt, many were slaughtered, and a number of women of the Sō family committed
suicide lest they fall into Mongol hands.
A worse fate awaited the prisoners.
Both Japanese and Yuan sources attest that wire was threaded through the palms of the
prisoners, mainly women, who were strung along the prows of the Yuan ships as a gruesome
necklace.
By the 13th of November, Tsushima had fallen and Ho-tan ordered the fleet to the next island,
Iki.
Here, the deputy shugo Taira Kagetaka had had time to prepare his forces, sending word
to Kyushu for aid.
After sending women and children to Hinotsume Castle, he took 100 mounted Samurai and their
retainers to meet the Yuan fleet on the northern beaches of the island.
Kagetaka’s forces held them off for a few hours, slowing down the Yuan landing, but
were unable to prevent it.
As the Yuan foothold grew, Kagetaka had no choice but to withdraw to Hinotsume Castle
in the evening.
Here, the small wooden walls would not long provide shelter against the warriors who had
taken Xiangyang.
Kagetaka sent his daughter, Katsura-hime, with a single samurai to take word to the
bakufu, and prepared for a hopeless last stand as the Yuan encircled the castle.
Women and townspeople within the castle joined in the defence, hurling what they could at
the enemy.
Catapults and Mongol arrows made short work of those on the walls, and when Kagetaka attempted
to lead a valiant sally through the gates, he found the Mongols pushing captive Japanese
before them, wire threaded through their palms, living cover for Mongolian archers.
His numbers dwindling, Kagetaka led what was left to the castle.
As fire began to engulf the fort and his remaining men gave them what time they could, Kagetaka
watched his family commit suicide before he too joined them in his final act of defiance.
Iki was thus overrun, and slaughter and other atrocities followed.
Katsura-hime never made it to shore, her boat coming too close to Mongol arrows.
Survivors, such as Katsura’s Samurai bodyguard, brought news of the terrors on Tsushima and
Iki to the rest of Japan.
In popular tradition, upon learning of these horrors the regent, Hojo Tokimune, stated
that this would be the most momentous occasion of his life.
When asked by a nearby priest how he intended to reply to the Mongol invasion, Tokimune
shrieked “Katsu!”
- Victory.
As we covered before, the Mongols would not find victory on the shores of Hakata Bay,
where stiff Japanese resistance and an unexpected storm pushed the remnants of the fleet back
to the Yuan realm.
Undaunted by the efforts of this small archipelago, Kublai threw another, even larger fleet against
Japan after he had conquered the Song Dynasty.
In 1281 his forces returned to Tsushima and Iki, though little information is provided
on these second encounters other than the fact local defences once again fell quickly.
One detail provided is that Saito Sukesada’s son, Sō Moriaki, continued in his father’s
legacy and fought the Mongols on the beaches of Tsushima.
Another is that the crying of children in the mountains of Tsushima alerted the Mongols
to the presence of families hiding there, resulting in the deaths of 300.
Ultimately, the invasion of 1281 proved an even greater disaster than the first, and
thousands of Chinese, Mongols, and Koreans met their end in the sea off the coast of
Japan.
Local defenses on Tsushima and the Japanese islands continued to be maintained during
the following decades for the possibility of a Mongol return, which was threatened but
never materialized.
Emboldened, Japanese pirates once more began to threaten the coast line, continuously attacking
Korea throughout the Yuan and Ming eras, and in time ranging as far afield as Malaysia.
On Tsushima and Iki, memorials stand to the brave samurai who stood against unstoppable
odds, local heroes who gave their lives for the defense of their islands, small garrisons
against perhaps the most fearsome army in history.
Once again, thanks to March of Empire for sponsoring this video!
This free to download medieval MMO strategy game is perfect for the fans of history and
Wargaming.
Play as a Highland King, Northern Tsar or Desert Sultan!
New Update called Wings of Liberty adds new events, bosses, boosts, shop items and exclusive
chest full of thematic equipment.
New players are protected from high level attacks.
Support our channel and build your empire by downloading now through the link in the
description!
We are planning more videos on the Japanese and Mongol histories, so make sure you are
subscribed to our channel and have pressed the bell button.
The link to our podcast is in the description!
We would like to express our gratitude to our Patreon supporters and channel members,
who make the creation of our videos possible.
Now, you can also support us by buying our merchandise via the link in the description.
This is the Kings and Generals channel, and we will catch you on the next one.