The fierce resistance on the beaches of Hakata Bay and the cataclysmic encounters with typhoons

- later known as the kamikaze - stand tall in the popular memory of the Mongol invasions

of Japan both within and outside of the country.

Having covered the course of the two invasion attempts previously, we will now cover the

first clash between Mongol horse archers and Samurai warriors, and their spirited defence

of the islands of Tsushima and Iki.

By the way, we have a podcast covering the history of the Mongols, the links are in the

description.

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The island of Tsushima is situated between the southern coast of Korea and the Japanese

island of Kyushu.

Only a short distance from Korea, Tsushima was a prominent base for Japanese pirates

to raid Korea, known as wakō.

As Tsushima itself was mountainous with little arable land, many turned to providing for

themselves on the sea, either through fishing or making the short trip to Korea.

In the thirteenth century the raiders found Korea a particularly vulnerable target, as

the kingdom suffered continuously from a far more fearsome enemy: Mongol horsemen of the

Great Khan.

Over a thirty-year period, Mongol forces repeatedly invaded Korea, and the Korean King Gojong

was forced to seek refuge on an island.

During this destabilization, Japanese pirates attacked Korea several times, though these

attacks ended by the time King Gojong made peace with the Mongols in 1259.

It is these attacks which first brought the Japanese, and Tsushima itself, to Mongol attention,

alongside rumours of the great wealth of the Japanese monarchs.

When the new Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan began sending envoys to Japan in the 1260s, demanding

they accept his Heaven ordained rule, Tsushima’s close proximity to Korea made it a natural

stopover for the Khan’s messengers.

However, the Japanese government, the Kamakura Bakufu under Hojo Tokimune, repeatedly refused

to even see Kublai’s envoys.

One returning group of frustrated envoys in 1269 captured two fishermen from Tsushima,

Tojiro and Yashiro.

The two were brought all the way back to the court of Kublai.

There, the most powerful single individual on the planet entertained two humble fishermen,

showing off his grandeur and demanding that, upon their return, they would tell Hojo Tokimune

to show him proper respect, that the Khan wished only to have the Japanese King at his

court, and to bequeath his fame to posterity.

On returning to Japan, the fishermen found no more success than Kublai’s official envoys

did.

The continued diplomatic offenses were not forgotten, and Kublai’s pretensions only

increased with the declaration of the Yuan Dynasty in 1271.

With the fall of the key Song Dynasty stronghold of Xiangyang, preparations soon followed for

an invasion fleet against Japan.

On the 2nd of November 1274 an armada of perhaps 20,000 Mongols, Northern Chinese, Jurchen,

Khitans, and Korean soldiers and sailors aboard nearly 1,000 ships set out from Happ’o on

Korea’s southern coast.

Tsushima was where the hammer blow would strike first.

By the evening of November 4th, the defenders spotted the Mongol fleet off the Tsushima

coast.

Lacking naval powers beyond their small pirate and fishing vessels, the Japanese had no way

to harry the Mongols at sea.

Tsushima was at that time controlled by the Sō clan, whose head, Sō Sukekuni, was the

deputy shugo, military governor, of the island.

According to the Hachiman Gudokun, a Japanese source written soon after the invasion, on

Tsushima there was a shrine to Hachiman, the Japanese god of war.

Tradition holds that on the day the Mongol fleet neared Tsushima, a fire broke out at

Hachiman’s shrine - a foreboding omen.

The fire was extinguished, and white doves were seen gathering on the roof of the shrine.

As doves were the messengers of Hachiman, Sukekuni interpreted it as a warning from

Hachiman: for why else would the god set fire to his own shrine?

Some modern authors have interpreted this as the doves having caused the fire, perhaps

from incendiaries tied to them and hence, the opening salvo in the Mongol attack upon

the island.

Either way, news reached Sukekuni that a massive fleet was approaching.

Sukekuni rallied his forces: some 80 mounted Samurai and their retainers.

He led them through the night over rough terrain to set up on the beach of Komoda, and prepare

for the dawn.

As the Yuan fleet neared Komoda beach early on the morning of November 5th, Sukekuni sent

a small vessel out to inquire as to the purpose of their arrival.

With the bakufu having rebuffed the Great Khan’s envoys repeatedly, the time was well

past for talk.

Sukekuni knew chances of victory against such a massive force were non-existent, yet lined

the defenders of Tsushima up for battle all the same as the smaller enemy landing craft

neared the shore.

The primary weapon of the samurai was the bow, their valuable and iconic yumi, with

which each warrior was highly skilled.

Like the Mongols, the Samurai fought as mounted archers, though their maneuvers on horseback

could not compare to steppe nomads born into the saddle.

The wealthiest samurai were well protected in their colourful and distinctive yoroi,

though on a poorer island like Tsushima few of the 80 samurai gathered by Sukekuni would

be so well armoured.

For sidearms, Sukekuni’s warriors had their single curved blades, the predecessors of

the famous katana, while the remainder of his forces were armed with little beyond spears

and naginata.

In contrast, the forces sent against him were varied, commanded by the Mongol general Ho-tan.

Most of the infantry Ho-tan threw against Sukekuni were Chinese and Korean levies raised

by the Khan, armed with spears, large wicker or bamboo shields, and protected by cloth

and gambeson-like armours.

As per Mongol tactics, these troops considered most expendable were sent in the first waves,

soaking up enemy arrows while the more valuable Khitan, Jurchen, Turkic and Mongol horse archers

disembarked from the ships.

Generally lightly armoured but highly experienced, their composite bows made them a deadly counter

to the samurai.

The sea voyage and need to lead their horses from the landing craft meant they could only

slowly get into their formations, preventing them from immediately trying to outflank their

enemies as was their usual practice.

While the Mongols readied their horses, the Korean and Northern Chinese troops were sent

against the samurai.

Per Samurai tradition, battle began with a whistling arrow sent high into the air; per

Mongol tradition, drums marked the start of their own advance.

Sukekuni’s skilled archers took a heavy toll on the foe marching up the beach.

As the Yuan forces neared them, challenges for single combat by the Samurai went unanswered

by the Chinese and Koreans, marching as they were behind rather un-samurai-like large shields.

Unused to the press[ure?] and greatly outnumbered, Sukekuni pulled his men back to the treeline

where the Yuan advance was slowed.

Here, the swordsmanship of the samurai made itself known.

One of Sukekuni’s closest comrades, Saito Sukesada, brought down several of the Yuan

soldiers and one senior Mongol officer.

Standing over the fallen officer, Sukesada shouted threats at the Mongols, calling on

any who dared face him in battle.

The Mongols responded with arrows, three of which pierced the armour of Sukesada’s chest

and ended him.

In the tradition held in the history of the Sō family, seeing the doom that awaited them,

Sō Sukekuni loosed the remainder of his arrows into the Yuan, and led one final futile cavalry

charge into his foe.

In the end the defenders were slaughtered, leaving the island open to the Mongols, and

over the following week Tsushima was overrun.

Towns were burnt, many were slaughtered, and a number of women of the Sō family committed

suicide lest they fall into Mongol hands.

A worse fate awaited the prisoners.

Both Japanese and Yuan sources attest that wire was threaded through the palms of the

prisoners, mainly women, who were strung along the prows of the Yuan ships as a gruesome

necklace.

By the 13th of November, Tsushima had fallen and Ho-tan ordered the fleet to the next island,

Iki.

Here, the deputy shugo Taira Kagetaka had had time to prepare his forces, sending word

to Kyushu for aid.

After sending women and children to Hinotsume Castle, he took 100 mounted Samurai and their

retainers to meet the Yuan fleet on the northern beaches of the island.

Kagetaka’s forces held them off for a few hours, slowing down the Yuan landing, but

were unable to prevent it.

As the Yuan foothold grew, Kagetaka had no choice but to withdraw to Hinotsume Castle

in the evening.

Here, the small wooden walls would not long provide shelter against the warriors who had

taken Xiangyang.

Kagetaka sent his daughter, Katsura-hime, with a single samurai to take word to the

bakufu, and prepared for a hopeless last stand as the Yuan encircled the castle.

Women and townspeople within the castle joined in the defence, hurling what they could at

the enemy.

Catapults and Mongol arrows made short work of those on the walls, and when Kagetaka attempted

to lead a valiant sally through the gates, he found the Mongols pushing captive Japanese

before them, wire threaded through their palms, living cover for Mongolian archers.

His numbers dwindling, Kagetaka led what was left to the castle.

As fire began to engulf the fort and his remaining men gave them what time they could, Kagetaka

watched his family commit suicide before he too joined them in his final act of defiance.

Iki was thus overrun, and slaughter and other atrocities followed.

Katsura-hime never made it to shore, her boat coming too close to Mongol arrows.

Survivors, such as Katsura’s Samurai bodyguard, brought news of the terrors on Tsushima and

Iki to the rest of Japan.

In popular tradition, upon learning of these horrors the regent, Hojo Tokimune, stated

that this would be the most momentous occasion of his life.

When asked by a nearby priest how he intended to reply to the Mongol invasion, Tokimune

shrieked “Katsu!”

- Victory.

As we covered before, the Mongols would not find victory on the shores of Hakata Bay,

where stiff Japanese resistance and an unexpected storm pushed the remnants of the fleet back

to the Yuan realm.

Undaunted by the efforts of this small archipelago, Kublai threw another, even larger fleet against

Japan after he had conquered the Song Dynasty.

In 1281 his forces returned to Tsushima and Iki, though little information is provided

on these second encounters other than the fact local defences once again fell quickly.

One detail provided is that Saito Sukesada’s son, Sō Moriaki, continued in his father’s

legacy and fought the Mongols on the beaches of Tsushima.

Another is that the crying of children in the mountains of Tsushima alerted the Mongols

to the presence of families hiding there, resulting in the deaths of 300.

Ultimately, the invasion of 1281 proved an even greater disaster than the first, and

thousands of Chinese, Mongols, and Koreans met their end in the sea off the coast of

Japan.

Local defenses on Tsushima and the Japanese islands continued to be maintained during

the following decades for the possibility of a Mongol return, which was threatened but

never materialized.

Emboldened, Japanese pirates once more began to threaten the coast line, continuously attacking

Korea throughout the Yuan and Ming eras, and in time ranging as far afield as Malaysia.

On Tsushima and Iki, memorials stand to the brave samurai who stood against unstoppable

odds, local heroes who gave their lives for the defense of their islands, small garrisons

against perhaps the most fearsome army in history.

Once again, thanks to March of Empire for sponsoring this video!

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Wargaming.

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