Jeong-Il Lee

10.18399/acta.2020.23.2.002

East Asian War defensive fortifications firearms infantry operation Sino-Korean military cooperation

For the first three months of the East Asian War, Chosŏn commanders learned how fleetly the Japanese armies, equipped with keen swords for close combat and dreadful muskets for long-range shooting, marched due to their adroit maneuvers. This article examines the way the Chosŏn armies made tactical adjustments during the East Asian War, especially from the third quarter of 1592 to the first quarter of 1593, while at the same time avoiding a direct confrontation with the Japanese armies. One focus of this paper is upon how the Chosŏn armies opted for defensive fortifications, depended on infantry-centered operations, and achieved some meaningful victories. The other focus is upon how the tactical changes had a bearing on Sino-Korean military collaboration and the resumption of Sino-Japanese negotiations. This two-tiered approach will place Chosŏn perspectives in line with recent research on the interstate scale of the war, where infantry warfare and firearms became one major strategy of Chosŏn and Ming against “the northern caitiffs (the Mongols/Jurchens) and the southern dwarves (Japan) 北虜南倭” in the sixteenth century and beyond, and illuminate the complex interstate relations among the East Asian countries that couched Ming-centered regional hegemony in terms of their own security.