You officials don't seem to be very interested in my first two articles about Han Dynasty cavalry, and it doesn't matter that this time I have collected some other historical anecdotes Bo Jun smiled. This time the protagonists are our neighbors Korea and Japan, and the time node is the end of the 16th century, that is, the eve of toyotomi Hideyoshi's attack on Korea during the Ming Dynasty.
On the Japanese side, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was still following Oda Nobunaga in the war of reunification for the time being, let's talk about Korea first, when the king of Korea was Seonjo Lee (yan second voice) As a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, the surrounding environment was quite stable, and the Korean army at most fought against the Jurchens who were still very weak in the north at the time, and if there was no external trouble, then engage in internal political struggle, when the two major officials in Korea each formed the Dongjin Party and the Xiren Party with their own henchmen, from the eighth year of Xuanzu (1575) to the twenty-fourth year of Xuanzu, All kinds of means have emerged one after another, what false accusations and rebellions, disturbing the harem, and the crown prince to seize the throne to the final victory of the Eastern Party, but after the victory, the Eastern Party has followed the split into the Northern Party and the Southern Party to continue the struggle.
Just as the Korean court was playing a party drama, Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent envoys to the east to hope that the Korean envoys would return to Japan, and at that time, japan's unification war was not over, but Toyotomi Hideyoshi was the most powerful, so he rushed to send envoys to neighboring countries, including Ryukyu, Portugal (which controlled Macau and Goa), Spain (controlled Luzon), and Korea. In the 20th year of Seonjo and the 15th year of Tenshō (1587), Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent an envoy to Korea for the first time after defeating the Shimazu family in Kyushu, and Korea discussed the results of the rare consensus between the Eastern and Western parties in the gap between the party disputes - refusing to return to visit, on the simple grounds that the Koreans believed that Toyotomi Hideyoshi killed Oda Nobunaga, the Hideyoshi regime belonged to the rebellion of the emperor, and how Korea, which had always called itself a "little China", could communicate with such a person. The discussion ended and continued the domestic reserved program - party struggle, anyway, at present, neither the East nor the West can kill anyone. This bitterly caused the Japanese envoy, Yasuhiro Yuzutani, who was killed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi after returning to his life.
After a year, the Dprk continued the party struggle at the end of the year, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi was not idle, promulgating the "Sword Hunting Order" that restricted civilians from possessing controlled knives, the "Companion Tenren Pursuit Order" ("Companion Tenren" is a transliteration of the Portuguese "priest", and the pursuit is exile) and also prepared to send troops to attack the Hojo clan in the Kanto region.
The Tsushima lord Zong Yi tuned at first sight of the big matter and had learned from Yasuhiro Yuzuya, so he decided to send his most powerful son Zong Yizhi and his family's senior monk JingRu Xuansu (who had a high status as a Japanese monk at that time, and did not produce and read the scriptures all day long, belonging to highly educated talents) and the family minister Yanagawa Tuning. A special gift was also prepared including a horse, a pair of peacocks (God knows where the owner of Tsushima Island got it), and several arquebusiers.
The DPRK, which prides itself on being a state of etiquette, "Little China," saw that many people from Japan had come this time and brought gifts, so it could not be neglected, so it sent a special official to receive it, but there was no explanation for how to receive it, and there was no preparation for talking about anything, so the reception official ate and drank with the Japanese envoy at the "Dongping Hall" in Seoul, which specially received the Japanese mission, for half a year. It was decided to let Japan first send back a few traitors and pirates who had defected, and Zong Yizhi immediately recruited them and then returned to China with joy and joy, but after returning to China, Zong Yizhi left and right were not waiting for the envoys who came to Korea, why? Because the two parties in the East and the West of Korea reached a climax in this year, the killing of the ground and the killing of the japanese file forgot about the file.
After another half a year and twenty-three years (1590) in March, the Korean delegation finally arrived in Japan and brought back gifts such as ginseng, but this time the change of Japan was not waiting to see, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was just going to fight the Hojo family, so Gyeongru Hyun-su arranged for the mission to live in Osaka, and after another four or five months Toyotomi Hideyoshi could be regarded as returning. Hideyoshi was very happy to hear that the Dprk envoy had come, but the dprk and Japan had different understandings of this return visit, and in the eyes of the DPRK, it was just an ordinary foreign visit and the status of the two sides was equal, and in the eyes of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, this was the DPRK who came to pay tribute in the name of the Yamato nation, and naturally it was no more courteous than to even change the diaper for his young son in the lobby where the mission was received.
The North Koreans immediately exploded: when did my "Little Zhonghua" suffer such insults, even the Great Ming of the Heavenly Dynasty treated me with courtesy, and this obscene man with a face that looked like a monkey (Toyotomi Hideyoshi's face looking like a monkey was the consensus of China and Japan) humiliated North Korea so much that he immediately said that he wanted to return to China. Although he knew that he was out of shape, but the process of the mission still had to go, JingRu Xuansu still hurried to hand over the national letter to the mission before the Koreans returned home, but the content of the state letter made the Korean mission half dead.
First of all, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's national letter begins with "Your Excellency", indicating that Toyotomi Hideyoshi and the King of Joseon are on an equal footing, but according to the vassal system of that year, the general king of the vassal country accepts the title of King of The Great Ming and belongs to the rank of the county king, and Korea belongs to the rank of the prince when the king is treated preferentially, and belongs to the rank of the king under one country, and other kings should call the king of Korea "His Highness", which japan is quite ignorant of lifting. But this is not the most important thing, there is also a sentence in the national book that "your country pioneer entered the DPRK", which is to ask Korea as the pioneer of Japan to attack Daming? The North Korean mission certainly did not dare to bring back such a state letter with it. In the end, the letter of state was brought back after the DPRK and Japan negotiated and revised, but Gyeonggu Hyun-su verbally warned the mission that if the DPRK did not obey, it would have to go to war.
After the Korean delegation returned home with the information that Japan was going to attack Daming, the party struggle stopped, and everyone began to seriously discuss whether to report to Daming, if they reported, then the matter of the private exchange of envoys between the DPRK and Japan would be known to Daming, and the fornication of foreign clans might be blamed by Emperor Daming. In the end, the factions unanimously agreed to report it directly, and if the Ming Dynasty asked about it, it would be said that it was to listen to the fishermen at sea, and it was absolutely impossible to propose a visit. After the matter was settled and the candidates for the visit to Daming were selected, the parties continued to fight, and of course, the Japanese threat of attacking Korea was naturally forgotten by them. But we can't blame them for not being prepared for war, after all, the Korean state claimed that 200,000 elite troops were defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 20 days, the capital Seoul, and it didn't matter whether they were prepared for war or not, in the end they had to rely on the Ming army to counterattack, or the party struggle was the most important.