Mongol Invasion of Japan (元寇): Part 1 - Some quick myths about the invasion (WIP)

Mongol Invasion of Japan (元寇): Part 1 - Some quick myths about the invasion (WIP)

A modern depiction of the Mongol invasion made by Kawashima Jimbei II

Edit: This is a work in progress, but I wanted to share some preview after having miss few months. Hope you will enjoy!

Some forewords from the author of this blog
Normally I don't make introduction about the blog itself in my articles, as I think about this project more like a timeless collection of articles dedicated to Japanese military history.
However, this time I feel that it is needed, and instead of making a separate post, I'll like to write something here, before getting to the article.

I think that for everyone, 2020 was a very rough year to get through for the global situation and the period of uncertainty we have ahead of us. As I'm writing this (July 2020), I didn't expect to find so much trouble in finding the time, the energy and the dedication to write something worth of the attention of the readers of this blog.
And the situation, plus a good amount of personal issues made me think about the role of this blog.

I always wanted to make the best out of my articles, without the arrogance to have the quality of historians nor people with years of knowledge on their back.
This blog was more like a place to share my notes and my ideas on topics related to Japanese military history, based on actual period and proper historical sources: but I'm not perfect nor qualified enough to have the ability of being always 100% right and while I wanted to write about everything concerning Japanese military history, I think that I should stick to the topic I'm more confident about, namely arms and armors.
Nonetheless, I really wanted to share my sources on other topics concerning Japanese military history, with the disclaimer that outside arms and armors topics, in which I do feel to be at least somewhat quite educated at this point, having spent 10 years of my life into that, I might not be 100% accurate.
In order to compensate for that, I've decided that whenever I'll cover these kind of topics, I will list my references; this won't elevate my article at any level above random stuff on the internet: it will always be a blog on the internet and I'll always invite people in double check the stuff I wrote, if they have the ways and the time to do so.

Lastly, as people might have noticed, I haven't wrote anything for months. That was quite weird for me, as I do enjoy writing on my blog - but this year, with its all weird features, made it very hard to have something ready every month, despite my efforts. This is also the reason behind this article: as I wanted to cover the Mongol Invasion since the beginning of this blog, and while I didn't have the time to dedicate something big and of quality, I'd rather start with a part 1 with some quick facts and myths before covering as much as I can.
This would be quite interesting, I believe, as I would target the "facts" that are taken for granted beneath the history of this conflict rather than the events itself, which are usually covered quite well in proper history books (Turnbull shouldn't be considered among those ones!).
I hope you will enjoy!

Gunbai

Introduction 

Within Japanese history, the Mongol Invasion has always been associated with events of greater importance especially from a military history point of view.
It is one of the few astonishing Mongol defeat, and helped to create the nationalistic myth of the kamikaze (神風).

Moreover, there is something extremely heroic in the narration of the conflict, as the islands of Japan struggled against the mighty invaders and were saved by divine intervention from a doomed future.
It is also a key event for many history books, both in Japan and for the Yuan dynasty: it was one of the last conflicts before the death of Kublai Khan and was behind the fall of the Hojo regency and the Kamakura shogunate in Japan.From a military history point of view the two invasions are often cited as key events for "modernize" the Japanese warfare of the period, which was apparently inadequate against the Mongols: although there is some little truth to that, it is a extremely broad generalization, and it's not supported by historical evidences of the late 13th and 14th centuries.

Despite being grounded in a historical narration of the events, the pop history version of the Mongol Invasions of Japan is quite far from the reality of the events that happened in Japan in the late 13th century, and within this article I would like to address some of these myths that are often portrayed when we talk about the "Mongol Invasion". This is a part 1 of a series which will cover the events of the invasions, however here we would have a broader look at both conflicts and I will try to explain why those facts that are often cited in the narrative of the invasions should be take into their historical context.

The "Mighty Invader": The force that invaded Japan

There is no doubt that the empire created by the successors of Genghis Khan was among the strongest, if not the strongest, military power of the period. Their conquest, tactics and historical reputation speaks for themselves and I'm quite sure that it is possible to find plenty of valuable information on their incredible war machine, so we won't cover much of it here.

The newly established Yuan dynasty that invaded Japan was also the one whom conquered and defeated the Song dynasty and ruled over the Goryeo dynasty in Korea.

Kublai Khan depicted on a hunting expedition, Liu Guandao, 1280.

Even if someone is not well versed in mongol tactics and warfare, the association with horse archery, skilled horsemen and feigned retreat should still be immediate. The mongols of the late 13th century were extremely proficient in the art of war, both when it comes to being skilled fighter but also in the often overlooked logistic and burocratic structures of their armies.
The organization, their tactics and the technology they employed by that time (being among the first to rely on gunpowder weapons thanks to the Chinese development of the century) were no doubt better and much more developed than the ones used by the Japanese of the period.
However, when we consider the two invasions of Japan, we don't find such a mighty invader. 
The first thing to point out is that historical sources of the period seriously overstimate the troop strength of both factions in the conflicts.
In fact, if we have to give credit to the Yuan shi (元氏) when it comes to Yuan forces, the second invasion would be the largest historical amphibious operation up until the WWII, with the difference that the allied forces had to cross 20 miles 0f sea, while the two mongolian armadas 116 and 480 miles respectively.

One doesn't have to be a historian to question the numbers of the invasion and see that there is clearly an evident exagerations.

Sadly, we lack decisive and reliable numbers, but on the other hand, we do have some estimations. The Japanese bakufu didn't recorded the exact number of troops but we have several second hand accounts.
According to Ishii Susumu and Kaizu Ichiro, the Japanese forces that fought in the invasions were in between 2300 and 6000 men. Yet it would be a mistake to consider all of these men to be mounted Samurai alone.
For instance, a guard duty register of the Izumi province in 1272 had a total of 98 warriors and only 19 of them were gokenin (御家人), while the rest 79 of it was made by low ranking retainers who fought on foot (heishi - 兵士).

This proportion is on the lower end of the distribution as the Izumi province wasn't among the most powerful ones, however it is very likely that horse archers Samurai were in between 10% and 25% of the total army that fought in both invasions, while the rest of it was made by lower rank retainers which fought on foot.
The famous and most important sources, the Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba (蒙古襲来絵詞) give the idea that the Samurai forces with their retainers didn't consist of a large force, definitely under the 6000 mark.
Nonetheless the Mongol sources put the numbers of the defenders at 100 000 men, something that only around the time of the wealthiest daimyo of the Sengoku period in the late 16th century were capable of.

A section of the original scroll, from the Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba (蒙古襲来絵詞).

Mongol sources on the other hand  states that in the first invasion 15 000 men composed by Mongol, Jurchens and Han Chinese plus 8000 Korean soldiers, for a total of 23 000 men sailed for Japan.
However, given the nature of the operation and the presence of Han Chinese and Koreans, it would be wrong to think that the famous and skilled Mongolian horse archers made up the majority of the troops deployed in the war.
Nevertheless, the Mongol clearly states that they were outnumbered by their foes, so it is quite likely that only few thousand man reached Japan in 1274.
According to Japanese first hand account of the invasion, the mongol army that invaded Japan was made primarily by foot soldiers recruited in China and Korea, with Mongol horsemen acting as generals. Ironically, it is very likely that the Japanese army had much more horsemen than their mongolian counterpart.

Both Japanese and Mongol invasions seems to be exagerating the number of the Yuan forces, putting the entire armada at more than 100 000 men. While those numbers seems questionable, archeological findings of the second fleet clearly show that big war boats were deployed by the Yuan, which measure over 230 meters and thus could support such army. Still, the burden of such logistic feat would have been extreme even for the Yuan empire, so while it is very likely that the second invasion had more troops than the first one, it is hard to believe that they number more than 100 000 men.

On the other hand, other estimations for troop strenght exist as well in the literature.
For the first invasion, if we take into account additional korean sailors that might have partecipated in the fights as well, we could count an invading force of 27 000 - 30 000 men,while much more reliable account for the second invasion put the number of the two combined fleet at 70 000 men. Details of these troops, army and navy would be discussed in future article.

The main point of this section is to highlight that this wasn't the typical Mongolian army of the period. It wasn't made entirely by mounted warriors, which accounted for a very limited part of the troops, and the composition of different people inside the army, Han Chinese, Koreans, Jurchens and Mongol themselves made the comunication within the army extremely difficult.
In fact, it would be extremely flawed to call the entire operation a "Mongol Invasion" as the force was made by various people under the control of the Yuan empire.
Moreover, while the Samurai that fought to defend Japan were raised within a warrior culture that promoted martial attitudes, and had to actively looking for a fight in the war in order to get a compensation from the Shogunate, the same cannot be said for all the auxiliary troops that made the majority of the invaders army.
Those men lacked the discipline and the high status equipment of the Samurai they were fighting, but most importantly they were fighting in a foreing land, under the banner of their invader in their respective country.

If we use that lens, it is possible to see that the two factions involved in the war had completely different level of motivation: while the defenders had a dedicated warrior ethos that valued sacrifice and were willing to fight to deat, most of the invaders were ready to set sail to their native land as soon as possible.

Samurai Tactics - Mounted duels or Coordinated cavalry charge? 

Another incredibly common and accepted idea is the the so called "clash of culture" between the much more advanced warfare developed by the Mongol in the mainland compared to the more romantic and ritualistic one used in Japan.
The topic of ikkiuchi (一騎打ち) or single combat is a stable of Japanese epic narrative, the gunkimono (軍記物), and thus it is natural that many "historian" incorporated such theme in their pop-history works; however, it is quite weird that those narratives were put outside their context.
According to the tradition of single duels, the two party that faced each other shouted their names with their lineage and then engage into a deadly and honorable duel, in Japan such duel would have been a mounted archery duel. I won't spend much time into going further into this one, as there is clearly already tons of material online plus the gunkimono themselves, and because it didn't exactly reflects the nature of Japanese warfare of the period.
Morevoer, it is also commonly assumed that Samurai fought among themselves into these weird honorable duels while their low ranking retainers acted as support units.

This myth however is not supported by the historical accounts of the period; among many of them, the famous Mongol Invasion scroll.The Samurai of the period fought into small units, and each unit was made by mounted archers belonging to the upper class and their followers on foot. The size of these units changed across the period and according to the wealth of each family.

The mounted archers were the striking arm of the unit, and often acted as shock troops, with ambushes and raid being the most common tactic deployed.
Those archers fought relatively close, according to the art of the period, although speaking of formation would be wrong. In this scenario, each Samurai used his bow to shoot one enemy at a time, but it would be wrong to call this whole context a duel.
The focus of the warrior wasn't solely aimed at one target though, and he himself could have been target of multiple enemies at once.
Each mounted warriors acted individually, but still inside his group and supported by his retainers on foot, so while everything was extremely fluid and definitely not coordinated, it's seems that some degree of cohesion was kept inside the group through the usage of battle flags, at least when the cavalry units charged. This interpreation is supported by the account of Takezaki Suneaga as well as period art.

A famous section of the Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba (蒙古襲来絵詞), where you can see the men of Shiroishi Rokurō Michiyasu, charghing with his mounted squad against the Mongols.

Indeed by analyzing the written account of Suneaga, who was present at the battle, we do not find Samurai warriors trying to engage into honorable duels while shouting their names, but rather a consistent group of men on horseback charging forward with their knocked arrows;

Shortly before being wounded and shot in the famous scene depicting Suneaga falling from his horse, he goes on by saying:

Let us then charge!” and galloped forward shouting….My bannerman’s horse was shot, and he was thrown. Then I was wounded, as were three of my mounted retainers. My horse was hit as well, but just as I sprang from it, Shiroishi Rokurō Michiyasu, a shogunal vassal from Hizen province, came galloping in from the rear, with a sizeable force. The Mongol warband retreated toward Sohara. Michiyasu, whose mount was not yet wounded, plunged into the enemy ranks again and again. Had it not been for him, I would surely have perished. Amazingly, we both survived, and could act as witnesses for one another.

The famous scene depicted in which Suneaga is wounded; ironically, while it is possible to see a rudimentary form of explosive, this detail, according to a modern analyze of the scroll was added at a later date and thus we do not find a mention of such weapon in the specific account. On the other hand, we do know that those weapons existed and were used thanks to actual findings.

It's also wrong to believe that the Samurai only engaged among themselves or fought against their enemies if said people were "honorable" enough. There are plenty of accounts of low ranking retainers back stabbing other Samurai in order to save their lords or Samurai being killed by unsigned arrows, which were shot by low ranking retainers, as Samurai usually had their names written on theirs.
For the same reasons, the Samurai themselves didn't have issues in killing enemy on foot with their arrows or swords.

To summarize, we can see that the Samurai who fought in the Mongol invasion acted as small units of retainers, both mounted or on foot, and engaged the enemy with their bows while charging against it. This happened when field battles were carried by the two factions.
We do not see on the other hand, Samurai willing to fight on honorable duels while shouting their names, which to be fair would have been useless as the enemy couldn't speak their language, let alone hearing them while other people were killing each other!
There are no mentions of duels in the actual period fighting accounts; those are fabrications of epic narratives that were made to highlight the personal history and feats of a particular warrior.

The narrative of the accounts could also help us to see the pattern used by several hundred years in what we could call Samurai warfare, hence quick and fierce skirmishes, raids and unexpected attacks favoured by the skilled use of heavy horse archers, and a preference to pick scattered units; one Samurai named Yamada who defended Iki in 1281 used his most powerful archers to shoot dead three enemy mongols from higher distance.
Even when field battles didn't took place in 1281, the pattern was the same: usage of fortifications and accurate fire against scattered units, night boardings with smaller ships against the anchored navy and skirmishes which more often than not saw the Japanese warriors victorious against the unprepared Yuan-Goryeo armada.

A group of Samurai boarding a Yuan-Goryeo ship with swords and polearms. From 蒙古襲来合戦絵巻.

The idle narration that depict the Samurai struggling against the much more superior and advanced Mongol army is quite far from the reality of the events, although has its own historical inception as we would see in the following paragraph.
Yet, with respect of both Japanese and Yuan-Goryeo sources, paired with a logical analysis of the invasions, we do see that the Mongols didn't enjoy any major tactical advantages when they clashed against the Japanese (despite being more advanced on paper in terms of logistical, technological and strategical point of view).
On the contrary, in 1274 they met fierce and stiff resistance to the point that the encounter with the Samurai of Shoni Kagesuke proved to be decisive for the Yuan retreat, as the commander of the army Liu Fu Xiang was wounded and Kagesuke praised by the Mongols themselves for his skill with the bow and horse.
In 1281, the construction of a wall on the beach of Hakata made the fleet unable to properly land, and their ships were constantly harrased by smaller Japanese boats.

Moreover, we do not see mentions of superior Mongol technology or tactics used effectively against the Samurai armies. Indeed, while the ships seems to have been equipped with form of trabuchets that launched primitive types of bombs called teppō, which scared the horses, and possibly the Mongol army carried some type of firelances, we do not have period or witnesses accounts of their usage, let alone sources claiming of their decisive impact on the battlefield.
The Mongols apparently didn't fought with en masse formations, but rather established portable shield walls - just as it was in the Japanese fashion - and defended their lines with bows and polearms. However they lacked their usual cavalry forces to counter the Japanese ones, given the naval nature of the invasion. The sources of the period also highlight the usage of gongs and drums to coordinate the troops, something that was new to the Japanese of the period whom rely on flags and colorful armors.

A section of the scroll depicting Mongol forces in formation; said types of shield walls resembled those used in that period in Japan and didn't present major novelties for the Japanese.

When mounted Samurai charged against these formations, which were not extremely thight, were suddenly hooked by polearms and unseated by the foot infantries; however, many men managed to survive unscathed such ventures into enemy lines, like Shiroishi Michiyasu, and when the cavalry troops were numerous enough they usually break the enemy formation resulting into a enemy retreat at Akasaka in 1274, given the usually low morale of those troops.
Several Samurai were also able to collect enemy heads, implying that they had the upper hand against multiple enemies when faced into close quarter combat.
All of these sources when analyzed as a whole, describe both factions having roughly speaking similar military capabalities, which proved to be effective for the Japanese to keep the Mongols at bay for weeks, when they were not outnumbered.

The "Kamikaze" - The role of the typhoons in the Mongol Invasion 

A close-up of a modern depiction of the Mongolian army being crushed by the storm

Among the most common narrative of the Mongolian invasion of Japan, at the first place we could definitely see how the divine wind (kamikaze - 神風) saved Japan twice from a crushing defeat.

However, this is incorrect from so many perspectives to the point that it is hard to decide where to start.
The major issues is that the Japanese army would have not been defeated in the first place mainly due to the fact that the capability of the Mongol-Goryeo armada to project its full military potential in the islands of Japan was very limited.
This is evident when we consider both campaigns, as the Mongols struggled to gain a stronghold in Kyushu, despite gaining few peripherals islands like Tsushima and Iki. The terrain of Japan would have made the entire feat impossible to say the least, not to mention that the Hojo regency didn't actually mobilize its entire force yet (although that is arguable wheter or not they would have been able to muster so many troops).
While in the first invasions the generals themselves realized that they lacked the adeguate resources to subjugate Kyushu, let alone the entire country, in the second one they were forced to stay at sea for months due to the fortifications and the stiff resistance of the Japanese.

So one of the key elements of the pop version of these invasions, hence that the storms saved the country of the Rising Sun is simplistic and rather unrealistic, as the entire feat was doomed to fail from the beginning.
Yet the storms were real events, historically, although its importance was overly exagerated over the years by some historical sources themselves.

Vassal of such historical narratives is the Hachiman Gudokun (八幡愚童訓) which deal with several exagerations on how the Japanese troops struggled and succeded thanks to the divine intervention of Hachiman.
Yet, even within this source we do not find credible evidences of a typhoon hitting the Mongol fleet as the invader is described to leave the wind as soon as reverse wind approached the land. Such typhoon is mentioned however in Yuan sources, but if anything, the storm would have hit a defeated armada on its way to Korea, and was not itself the cause of retreat.
On the other hand, we have plenty of evidences both from archaeology as well as written sources of a severe storm hitting the fleet during the second invasion.
Still, said storm would have manifested itself around the 15th of August, while the first raids begun on the 9th of June against Tsushima.
The Yuan-Goryeo fleet was stucked at Hakata and in the nearby islands, unable to make decisive land progress, from the 25th of June.
So it is clear and evident that such crushing defeat would have hardly be real for the Japanese side, as the Mongols were unable to gain anything for several months of conflicts.

As historian T.Conlan commented on the whole episode, the thypoon that hit the fleet, while devastating  on its own, was hardly a decisive factor on the defeat of the Yuan forces but more of coupe de grace on a dying enemy.

Sword's struggles - Did the Mongol brought the Japanese sword making to a change? (WIP)

 Military "Evolution" or "Revolution"?- What the Mongol invasions brought to Japan (WIP)