"In 1265, The
Seed Was Sown That Led To The Attempted Invasion Of Japan By The Mongols.
A Koryu Citizen, Cho I., Found His Way To Peking, And There, Having Gained
The Ear Of The Emperor, Told Him That The Mongol Powers Ought To Secure
The Vassalage Of Japan.
The emperor listened favourably and determined to
make advances in that direction.
He therefore appointed Heuk Chuk and Eun
Hong as envoys to Japan, and ordered them to go by way of Koryu and take
with them to Japan a Koryu envoy as well. Arriving in Koryu they delivered
this message to the king, and two officials, Son Kun-bi and Kim Ch'an,
were appointed to accompany them to Japan. They proceeded by the way of
Koje Harbor in Kyung-sang Province, but were driven back by a fierce
storm, and the king sent the Mongol envoys back to Peking. The Emperor was
ill satisfied with the outcome of the adventure, and sent Heuk Chuk with a
letter to the king, ordering him to forward the Mongol envoy to Japan. The
message which he was to deliver to the ruler of Japan said, 'The Mongol
power is kindly disposed towards you and desires to open friendly
intercourse with you. She does not desire your submission, but if you
accept her patronage, the great Mongol empire will cover the earth.' The
king forwarded the message with the envoys to Japan, and informed the
emperor of the fact.... The Mongol and Koryu envoys, upon reaching the
Japanese capital, were treated with marked disrespect.... They remained
five months, ... and at last they were dismissed without receiving any
answer either to the emperor or to the king." (II. pp. 37, 38.)
Such was the beginning of the difficulties with Japan; this is the end of
them: "The following year, 1283, changed the emperor's purpose. He had
time to hear the whole story of the sufferings of his army in the last
invasion; the impossibility of squeezing anything more out of Koryu, and
the delicate condition of home affairs, united in causing him to give up
the project of conquering Japan, and he countermanded the order for the
building of boats and the storing of grain." (II. p. 82.)
Japan was then, for more than a century (A.D. 1205-1333), governed really
in the name of the descendants of Yoritomo, who proved unworthy of their
great ancestor "by the so-called 'Regents' of the Hojo family, while their
liege lords, the Shoguns, though keeping a nominal court at Kamakura, were
for all that period little better than empty names. So completely were the
Hojos masters of the whole country, that they actually had their deputy
governors at Kyoto and in Kyushu in the south-west, and thought nothing of
banishing Mikados to distant islands. Their rule was made memorable by the
repulse of the Mongol fleet sent by Kublai Khan with the purpose of adding
Japan to his gigantic dominions. This was at the end of the 13th century,
since which time Japan has never been attacked from without." (B. H.
Chamberlain, Things Japanese, 3rd ed., 1898, pp.
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