page_title: Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598)
section_title: Problems with Joseon defense policies
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598) / Background / Military capabilities / Problems with Joseon defense policies
caption_attribution_description: An illustration of an ampulliform Chinese hand cannon with a gunpowder charge shooting a blast of flame with lead pellets as coviative projectiles. The weapon was called the 'phalanx-charging fire-gourd' ('chong zhen huo hu-lu'). This illustration is from the Huolongjing, a 14th century military treatise compiled by Liu Ji and Jiao Yu, with the preface added in the year 1412. This illustration also appears on page 238 of Joseph Needham's book Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Part 7.
context_page_description: The Japanese invasions of Korea of 1592-1598 or Imjin War involved two separate yet linked invasions: an initial invasion in 1592, a brief truce in 1596, and a second invasion in 1597. The conflict ended in 1598 with the withdrawal of the Japanese forces from the Korean Peninsula after a military stalemate in Korea's southern coastal provinces. It ultimately resulted in Joseon Korean and Ming Chinese victory and the expulsion of Japan from the peninsula.
  The invasions were launched by Toyotomi Hideyoshi with the intent of conquering the Korean Peninsula and China, which were respectively ruled by the Joseon and Ming dynasty. Japan quickly succeeded in occupying large portions of the Korean Peninsula, but the contribution of reinforcements by the Ming, as well as the disruption of Japanese supply fleets along the western and southern coasts by the Joseon Navy forced a withdrawal of Japanese forces from Pyongyang and the northern provinces to the south in Busan and nearby regions.
context_section_description: There were several defects with the organization of the Joseon-era Korean military defense system. One example was a policy that stated that local officers could not individually respond to a foreign invasion outside of their jurisdiction until a higher ranking general, appointed by the King's court, arrived with a newly mobilized army. This arrangement was highly inefficient since the nearby forces would remain stationary until the mobile border commander arrived on the scene and took control. Secondly, as the appointed general often came from an outside region, he was likely to be unfamiliar with the natural environment, the available technology, and manpower of the invaded region. Finally, as a main army was never maintained, new and ill-trained recruits conscripted during war constituted a significant part of the army.
  The Korean court managed to carry out some reforms, but they remained problematic. For example, the military training center established in 1589 in Gyeongsang Province recruited mostly men either too young or too old to be good soldiers, augmented by some adventure-seeking aristocrats and slaves buying their freedom, because able-bodied men of the right age, targeted by the policy, had higher priorities such as farming and other economic activities.
  The dominant form of the Korean fortresses was the sanseong ("mountain fortress"), which consisted of a stone wall that continued around a mountain in a serpentine fashion. These walls were poorly designed with little use of towers and cross-fire positions (usually seen in European fortifications), and were mostly low in height. It was a wartime policy for these fortresses to serve as refuge castles and for everyone to evacuate to one, with those who failed to do so being assumed to be collaborators with the enemy; however, the policy never held any great effect because the fortresses were out of reach for most refugees.
caption: An illustration of an ampulliform Chinese fire-lance with a gunpowder charge shooting a blast of flame with lead pellets as coviative projectiles. The weapon was called the 'phalanx-charging fire-gourd'.
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