page_title: Siege of Pyongyang (1593)
section_title: Battle
hierarchical_section_title: Siege of Pyongyang (1593) / Battle
caption_attribution_description: Chinese cavalry and infantry attacking the walls of Pyongyang in 1593, from a Chinese painted screen in the Hizen-Nagoya castle museum
context_page_description: The Siege of Pyongyang was a military conflict fought between the allied Ming-Joseon army and the Japanese First Division under Konishi Yukinaga. The battle ended in victory for the allies but a successful retreat from Pyeongyang by the remaining Japanese in the night of 8 February 1593.
context_section_description: The battle began on 6 February 1593. Hyujeong's monks with support from Wu Weizhong attacked the large hill north of Pyeongyang where around 2,000 enemy troops were stationed under Konishi Yukinaga. Konishi was almost surrounded at one point until Sō Yoshitoshi counterattacked and rescued him. The fighting lasted for two days before the last Japanese commander, Matsuura Shigenobu, was forced to pull back to Pyeongyang. The monks suffered 600 casualties and Wu Weizhong was wounded in the chest by a bullet.
  In the morning of 8 January, Li Rusong's army advanced on the city, their tightly packed ranks "looking like the scales on a fish." Yang Yuan and Zhang Shijue attacked from the north and west, Li Rubai from the southeast, and Yi Il and Gim Eungso from the southwest. The east was covered by the Daedong River and could not be attacked.
  Once the signal cannon fired, they rushed the walls with ladders, shot fire arrows and threw bombs into the city, and started pounding the gates with cannons. The Japanese defense was almost too much. Li Rusong's own horse was shot out from under him and the assault began to show signs of faltering before Li went forward, cut off the head of a retreating soldier, and offered 5,000 taels to the first man over the wall. The allied troops renewed their assault until Luo Shangzhi was able to clear the wall and Yang Yuan followed by breaking through the northern gate. In the west the surviving monks and troops from the earlier attack joined Zhang Shijue's push into the city once the gate had been destroyed by cannons.
  The Japanese pulled back to their last line of defense, an earth and log fort in the northern corner of Pyeongyang. Li Rusong instructed his troops to set the building on fire using fire arrows, but even so the Japanese could not be dislodged. Instead the crush of allied  soldiers and cavalry suffered horrendous casualties to Japanese gunfire. Unable to move forward, many retreated through the western gate. Seeing this, Konishi chose to go on the offensive and sortied out with his men, only to be driven back by cannon fire.
  Unwilling to suffer any more casualties, Li Rusong called off the attack as night approached.
  Although nominally successful in repelling the enemies, the Japanese were no longer capable of defending the city. All the gates had been breached, no food was left, and they had suffered horrible casualties. With this in mind Konishi led the entire garrison out into the night and snuck across the frozen Daedong River back to Hanseong.
caption: Ming cavalry and infantry attack the walls of Pyeongyang.
exif: {}