For most who encountered the Mongol invasions first hand, they were an unstoppable enemy
bringing fire and ruin.
For Takezaki Suenaga, a samurai who fought against the Mongols in both of their invasions
of Japan, it was a chance for the highest glory and none could restrain him from taking
the field against them.
Today, we present the account of a historical samurai who fought the Mongols twice, and
lived to provided us with a set of illustrated scrolls of his exploits .
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Very little is known of Takezaki Suenaga prior to the invasions.
A minor samurai from Higo province in Kyushu island, he was part of the Takezaki clan,
owned lands, could provide himself a horse and an armour, and bring 5 retainers to battle
- about average for warriors from Kyushu.
29 years old on the eve of the first Mongol invasion in 1274, Suenaga was involved in
a land dispute which had put his personal finances in great jeopardy.
Beyond this, his early life is lost to us, and the details of his exploits come largely
from the set of illustrated scrolls he commissioned after the second Mongol invasion.
Higo Province in western Kyushu was close to the strategic Hakata Bay, the large, natural
harbour which any invasion fleet departing southern Korea would strike.
Suenaga was probably put on warning from 1268 on, when the Japanese government, the Kamakura
Bakufu, began to prepare for a possible Mongol invasion as tensions mounted with the Great
Khan of the Mongol Empire, Khubilai.
The first Mongol invasion fleet departed Korea early in November 1274, swiftly taking the
islands of Tsushima and Iki.
As the fleet neared Hakata Bay, Suenaga and the warriors of Kyushu were mobilized.
In theory, each warrior would fight with families of shared lineage, but was under no obligation
to do so.
Suenaga was part of the Takezaki clan, but operated nearly totally independently of them.
By the time he and his men, all on horseback, arrived near Hakata Bay, the Mongols had already
broken through the defensive line and had established a camp at Akasaka some kilometers
inland.
The commander in charge of the gathering samurai was Shoni Kagesuke.
He ordered those samurai who were already approaching Akasaka, Suenaga among them, to
fall back and await reinforcements.
As it was poor terrain, they hoped to encourage the Mongols to come to them, lose their formation,
and then allow Japanese archery to tear at them.
Suenaga followed the order, and once the various warriors were recalled and far from the enemy,
Suenaga spurred his horse onwards, saying, “Waiting for the general will cause us to
be late to battle.
Of all the warriors of the clan, I Suenaga will be the first to fight from Higo!”
In Japanese warfare of the period, men were rewarded for valour in combat, being the first
to enter battle, taking enemy heads, or losing men of their own.
Rewards included fine garments, horses, even lands.
For a relatively poor samurai like Suenaga, who could lose his expensive armour, weapons,
and horse in the battle, such rewards made all the difference.
These were powerful incentives against patiently waiting for orders.
As Suenaga rode on, one of commander Kagesuke’s retainers called on Suenaga to dismount and
wait, to which he replied, “We five are going to fight before you.
We won’t limit ourselves to merely shooting down the enemy!
I have no purpose in life but to advance and be known!”
Kagesuke recognized that he’d be unable to hold Suenaga back, and told him that he
would be witness to him.
This was an important aspect of this reward system: unless someone could bring severed
heads of the enemy, he needed witnesses, preferably multiple, who could vouch for the samurai’s
actions.
If multiple witnesses provided contrasting details, then the Bakufu could dismiss the
account and deny the samurai’s rewards.
On his ride to Akasaka, Suenaga encountered Samurai returning with severed enemy heads,
who told him the Mongols were already on the retreat.
Driving his horse onwards, he pursued the smaller of the two Mongol forces, halting
only briefly when he rode his horse into deep mud and had to pull it free.
When he was finally about to close with his enemy, one of his own retainers stopped him,
urging him to wait for Japanese reinforcements, and better chances of victory, and witnesses,
for his actions.
In typical fashion, Suenaga dismissed his concerns, shouting: “The way of the bow
and arrow is to do what is worthy of reward.
Charge!”
By then the Mongols had pressed on to the beach and open ground.
To Suenaga’s credit, he mentions his bannerman was the first one out, where his horse was
immediately killed by Mongol arrows.
Suenaga and three other retainers were injured by arrows, and finally, his own horse was
struck, throwing him into the sand.
This is the most famous scene in the illustrated scrolls, which shows Suenaga being thrown
from his horse while blood spills copiously from the wound.
In the illustration, a bomb goes off nearby.
This bomb is likely a later addition to the art: had the Mongols thrown explosives at
Suenaga, doubtless he would have mentioned surviving such a terrifying weapon.
The archaeological remains of such bombs have been found; this specific party of Mongols
is just unlikely to have lobbed them at Suenaga.
Thrown from his horse, Mongol arrows raking his small party, Suenaga admits in his narrative
that he would have died there, had it not been for a timely charge of samurai cavalry.
Their commander rode right through the Mongol line and miraculously emerged unscathed.
Suenaga was impressed and acted as a witness for him.
Another samurai was not so lucky: Suenaga watched the man struck in the neck by an arrow.
After brief fighting, the Mongol party they had been chasing escaped to their ships, and
thus ended Suenaga’s part in the first Mongol invasion of Japan.
The fleet soon departed, pushed back to Korea by strong winds.
Suenaga never mentions anything regarding divine winds or storms, all details beyond
his involvement.
As far as Suenaga was concerned, the victory was won entirely through the Japanese force
of arms, and anything important ended once he was no longer involved.
The next event in Suenaga’s scrolls is the most detailed, his journey to Kamakura city
in 1275 to claim his rewards.
To pay for the journey, Suenaga sold his horse and saddle and took the trip from Kyushu to
Kamakura.
There he met with little luck, the officials of the court ignoring his requests.
Here, Suenaga gives the most attribution to divinely inspired favour.
Visiting a nearby shrine of Hachiman, the war god, and praying fervently, he returned
and spoke with the administer of the Office of Appeals, Adachi Yasumori.
Yasumori was military governor of Suenaga’s home Higo province, one of the most powerful
men in Japan, and father-in-law to the shikken and Japan’s de facto ruler, Hojo Tokimune.
Suenaga told his story to Yasumori, and learned that Kagesuke’s brother, Tsunesuke, the
military governor of Chikuzen province, had not mentioned Suenaga’s exploits in his
report on the battle.
Lacking this evidence, with neither dead retainers nor enemy heads to show for it, Suenaga emphatically
declared that if Kagesuke said under oath that Suenaga was lying, then they could take
his head.
Impressed or annoyed with the man’s stubbornness, Yasumori took Suenaga’s deeds straight to
the highest authority, shikken Hojo Tokimune.
Suenaga was recognized, rewarded with a fine horse and saddle, and had his land dispute
settled in his favour.
Of the 120 samurai rewarded for the 1274 invasion, Suenaga was the only one who received a commendation
from the shogun.
Yasumori’s actions touched Suenaga, who commemorates him in the scrolls and in his
will urged his descendants to serve loyally the house of Adachi.
The Bakufu was generally reluctant to pay out these rewards.
Normally as fighting was between the Japanese, confiscated lands and goods from the losing
side were made the rewards for valourous samurai.
But fighting against a foreign enemy who retreated over the sea meant such rewards essentially
had to be paid out of pocket by the Bakufu.
A temporary measure was to forbid the samurais like Suenaga from leaving Kyushu to demand
rewards, citing reasons of military defence: not unwarranted, as they knew the Mongols
would return in greater force.
Therefore an even greater effort was thrown into the defences.
For over 20 kilometers around Hakata Bay a wall was built at likely beachheads, in places
3 meters high and 3 meters wide.
Warriors from the provinces of Kyushu were to serve 3 months of guard duty along the
coast.
The shugo, the military governors, came under the more direct rule of the Hojo clan to strengthen
its coordination abilities.
Temples were ordered to pray for the nation, and in the final months of 1275, there was
even a brief discussion of a retaliatory attack against Korea.
With the conquest of the Song Dynasty in 1279, Khubilai Khan now had ample men and resources
for side projects, such as punishing the insolent Japanese archipelago.
Two fleets were prepared: a northern, composed of Northern Chinese, Mongolian, Korean, Jurchen
and Khitan troops, and a larger southern fleet of inhabitants from the late Song Dynasty.
Many of the southern fleet’s vessels were repurposed ships designed for rivers in southern
China, not the open ocean.
Others were hastily constructed, built for the deadline of an impatient Great Khan.
The northern fleet, manned by experienced Korean sailors aboard sturdier ships, was
prepared on time while the southern fleet was held up with logistical issues.
With a timetable to link up with the southern fleet at Iki island, the frustrated northern
fleet set out on its own, sailing towards Hakata Bay in June 1281.
But the sea-wall did its work.
The armada could not force a landing, well-protected Japanese archers repulsing efforts wherever
the Yuan fleet tried to disembark.
For two months the fleet was held off, occupying Shiga island and unable to take advantage
of the southern fleet’s arrival to Kyushu.
With the enemy stuck at sea, when the 35-year-old Takezaki Suenaga arrived at Hakata Bay, he
had a problem.
He didn’t have a boat.
Since the Mongols were not coming to them, and hungry for glory, the samurai were taking
their small vessels out to sea, boarding the Yuan ships, and fighting there.
Suenaga and his retainers ran along the beach, looking for ships to take them but none had
room.
When hope seemed lost, the flag of Adachi Yasumori was spotted on a ship.
Boarding a messenger skiff unsuited to the deeper waters where the Mongol fleet moored,
Suenaga and his retainers reached Yasomori’s vessel.
To the annoyance of Yasumori’s retainers, Suenaga jumped aboard their ship.
He told them he was ordered there by the military governor, and had to be there- which Yasumori’s
men saw right through, and ordered him to be thrown off.
Suenaga cried that if they just gave him a small boat of his own, he’d leave on his
own accord, but somehow that didn’t convince them.
Suenaga tried this same trick on the boat of another lord, where he annoyed them enough
that they let him on board.
There was no space for Suenaga’s retainers who were left behind.
Such is the way of the bow and arrow, Suenaga mused in the scrolls.
In the process Suenaga forgot to grab his helmet, and fashioned an impromptu defence
out of two shin-guards he tied to his head.
Finally nearing an enemy ship, when attacking Suenaga was injured.
Frustrated, Suenaga threw his bow away, grabbed a naginata, and roared at the rowers to bring
them closer to the enemy ship- only for the rowers to push them away, fearing for their
life.
Switching ships again, Suenaga finally got his boarding action, in which he suffered
another wound.
His final engagement with the Mongols was taking part in pushing them from Shiga island.
One of Suenaga’s retainers and a relative were injured in that battle, and two of their
horses killed.
The Yuan fleet had it worse.
Bickering between the Mongolian, Chinese and Korean commanders hampered them.
The lack of progress raised tensions, provisions ran low, and the fleet was on the verge of
retreat when on the 15th of August, 1281, the sea began to churn.
With a storm oncoming, the men loaded onto the ships and set out for deeper waters.
A typhoon, rising unseasonably early, punished the fleet design.
The riverine Chinese ships of the southern fleet were annihilated, brought to the depths
near Takashima island or tossed onto the rocks.
The larger Korean vessels designed for open waters fared better.
Whereas half of the southern fleet may have been destroyed, only a third of the northern
shared their fate.
Survivors who made it to Kyushu and the neighbouring islands were hunted down and killed, and some
southern Chinese were enslaved to the Japanese.
So ended the second Mongol invasion of Japan.
Khubilai Khaan was furious and demanded a third attack, which never materialized.
Suenaga, in typical fashion, mentions none of this once his part in the fighting was
done.
Suenaga’s scrolls were compiled between 1293-1324, and were concerned with glorifying
his personal exploits and commemorating Adachi Yasumori, murdered in 1285, rather than an
overall view of the campaign.
The existence of the scrolls themselves is quite unusual, and expensive for someone living
well outside the capital.
Extensive battle scenes are portrayed, highly detailed armours, horses, and dozens of warriors.
While his position in 1274 had been humble, Suenaga enriched himself after the second
invasion, primarily through donations people made to a shrine he controlled, and lending
seeds at usurious rates.
When the farmers failed to pay back the loan, Suenaga seized their lands.
The fact the scrolls survived is remarkable: the Takezaki clan lost them in the late fourteenth
century when fighting spread through their lands and the scrolls, among other possessions,
were seized.
They traded between families over the following centuries, and only in the 1700s were they
copied.
In 1890 they were handed over to Emperor Meiji: today, they sit in Japan’s Museum of the
Imperial Collections.
If you have seen medieval artwork of the Mongol invasion of Japan, you are looking at one
of the illustrations from the scrolls.
A full translation by Thomas Conlan can be found in his work, In Little Need of Divine
Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga’s Scrolls of the Mongol Invasion of Japan, and provide
a fascinating look at a man who perhaps best embodied the ideals of 13th-century samurai
culture.
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