Battle of Tsushima (1274)

The Battle of Tsushima (1274) was the first battle of the Bun'ei Campaign during the First Mongol invasions of Japan, fought on Tsushima Island on 2 November 1274. The Mongols set sail from Korea and landed on Tsushima Island, defeating its defenders. The island was governed by Sō Sukekuni, who later got killed during the battle. After the fall of Tsushima, the Mongols next target was Iki Island, which they also captured. This made the Kamakura shogunate to make their coastal defenses stronger.

 Background 

In early 1269, a group of about 70 Koreans and Mongols arrived on Tsushima Island to demand an answer from Japan to a letter sent by Kublai. The great court wanted to reply, but the Kamakura shogunate did not want to reply. A strong reply was written but was never sent. The Yuan ships met attacks and were forced to leave Japanese waters. During the return trip, the crew captured two fishermen from Tsushima. These men were taken to the court of Kublai Khan and were later sent back to Japan in August 1269 with Korean messengers to give a new message. In late 1270, Kublai Khan sent one last group of people to Japan. Zhao Liangbi led this group of 24 writers. By this time, the Japanese were tired of messages from the Mongols. When the group arrived in early 1271, Japanese soldiers with weapons (samurai) met them. The soldiers took the group and held them. Zhao was set free later, but he was not allowed to meet the "king of Japan." He gave them a letter, but the Japanese did not answer. Zhao waited for an answer until 1273. Then he went back to China. He was very angry. He wrote a report for Kublai. In the report, he said the Japanese were wild people with no manners. He told Kublai not to waste the empire's money or men trying to take over Japan.

According to old Japanese stories, a strange event was said to have happened just before the First Mongol invasion of Japan. On Tsushima there was a building for worship made for Hachiman, who is thought of by many as the protector of Japan and the God of War. On October 5th, it has been said that there was a fire at Hachiman Shrine when no one lived there, in a remote area with only woods surrounding it, the fire was quickly put out, but the cause was not clear. The people said that many white pigeons flew from the north and landed on the roof of Hachiman Shrine moments before the fire happened. The leader of Tsushima, Sō Sukekuni, believed this was a warning from Hachiman and that danger was likely to happen, so he put the island under military rule, made his soldiers ready, and sent out guards to watch the edge of the sea.

In 1274, Kublai Khan ordered ships to be brought together in Korean towns by the sea. According to some new guesses around 900 ships may have been brought together to carry as many as 40,000 soldiers. Other stories give a more exact number for the army that went across the sea, describing about 23,000 Mongol, Chinese, and Korean soldiers that went with about 6,700 sailors commanded by Hol-Tun, Hung-Tsa-Kiu, and Yu-Puk Hyong, with their groups together known as the triple winged force. Most of the troops were Mongols, with Korean and Chinese support troops. Although Kublai ordered the trip to sail in the summer of 1274, the armada did not leave until November 3, when it left Happo near nowadays Pusan and crossed the narrow sea between Korea and Japan. It is not clear if this trip was meant as a full attack or a checking mission. The attack in 1274 may have been mainly a testing move, rather than an actual move to take over Japan. However, the decisions taken by the Yuan army were strong enough to say it was an full attack. Tsushima Island was chosen as the first target. The island is located about halfway between the south of Korea and the Japanese Island of Kyushu.

 Battle 
alt=|thumb|250x250px|Two Samurai with a dead Mongol at their feet. The one on the right is likely Sō Sukekuni, who led the local defense of Tsushima before the Mongol forces destroyed the defenders and took the island. Votive image (ema) at the Komodahama Shrine at Sasuura on Tsushima.
The Yuan invasion forces set off from Hoppo (, now Masan, South Gyeongsang Province, Korea) on 2 November 1274 (Dōngyuè 5 in the Chinese calendar). The Yuan ships sailed to Tsushima Island and landed troops there in 1274. They met a small body of troops of about 80 samurai under the deputy governor (jitodai) Sō Sukekuni. He was a brave knight whose blood is recorded to have came from a Japanese Emperor Antoku. His clan had served generation after generation as protectors of the island. The Mongols landed at 02:00 in the morning on 4 November, and when Sukekuni sent representatives to negotiate with them, they were driven off by archers. The fight began by 04:00. During the battle, the Mongol commander Hu-Tun used new gunpowder weapons. An old book called the Nihon Kokujokushi () says they used "fire tubes" (huo t'ung). Another record, the Hachiman Gudō-kun, describes "iron phao" (teppo) that made a bright flash and a noise like thunder. Other records say these weapons were shaped like bells and shot out thousands of small iron balls. The historian Joseph Needham says these descriptions show that the Mongols were using early hand-guns or small cannons. The Mongols quickly defeated the small local defense force on the Island, but according to the Sō Shi Kafu, one samurai, Sukesada, cut down 25 enemy soldiers in personal combat. The invaders defeated a final Japanese cavalry charge around nightfall; Sukekuni was among those slain. At first the defenders met the invaders on the beach but were driven back by a thick shower of arrows, described in Japanese books as falling “as heavy as rain,” with some accounts claiming the use of poisoned arrows.

 Aftermath 
One book says that after Tsushima was taken, the Mongols killed so many people and burned and looted houses. The Mongols did not keep Tsushima for a long period. They kept close watch over the island by sea and land so that no communication could be made with the outside. After restoring order among their forces, the Yuan ships moved southward and attacked Iki Island on 14 November 1274. Where the island’s ruler, Taira Kagetaka, prepared a defense with only about 100 mounted samurai and armed local people with homemade weapons. The defenders on Iki offered even less fighting back than those on Tsushima. Japanese legend later said that the bravery of the samurai angered the Mongol soldiers rather than earning their respect. After the fighting on Tsushima and Iki, the Japanese government decided to make thejr defenses stronger along the edge of the sea. The bakufu also began building a navy of its own in response to the Yuan attacks.

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Category:Mongol Empire
Category:13th century in Japan
Category:1274
Category:Battles
Category:1270s in Japan