page_title: Kikuchi Takefusa
section_title: The Battle of Kōan
hierarchical_section_title: Kikuchi Takefusa / Second Mongol Invasion (1281) / The Battle of Kōan
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 『蒙古襲来絵詞』後巻、絵十六【弘安の役】敵船に乗り込む竹崎季長と大矢野三兄弟、応戦する敵船。
context_page_description: Kikuchi Takefusa was the 10th head of the Kikuchi clan of Higo Province and gained fame for himself and his clan during the defense of Japan during both Mongol invasions of Japan.
context_section_description: The Eastern Route Army arrived at Hakata Bay on June 21, and decided to proceed with the invasion without waiting for the larger Southern force which had still not left China. They were a short distance to the north and east of where their force had landed in 1274, and were in fact beyond the walls and defenses constructed by the Japanese. The samurai responded quickly, assaulting the invaders with waves of defenders, denying them the beachhead.
  At night small boats carried small bands of samurai into the Yuan fleet in the bay. Under cover of darkness they boarded enemy ships, killed as many as they could, and withdrew before dawn. This harassing tactic led the Yuan forces to retreat to Tsushima, where they would wait for the Southern Route Army. However, over the course of the next several weeks, 3,000 men were killed in close quarters combat in the hot weather. Yuan forces never gained a beachhead.
  The first of the Southern force ships arrived on July 16, and by August 12 the two fleets were ready to attack Japan. On August 15 a major tempest struck the Tsushima Straits, lasting two full days and destroying most of the Yuan fleet. Contemporary Japanese accounts indicate that over 4,000 ships were destroyed in the storm; 80 percent of the Yuan soldiers either drowned or were killed by samurai on the beaches. The loss of ships was so great that "a person could walk across from one point of land to another on a mass of wreckage".
caption: Also from the Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba: Takefusa and his men boarding the Mongolian ships. You can see Takefusa cutting off a Mongol soldier's head.
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