| The Imjin War was an international war in 1592 involving Ming dynasty,Japan and Korea.Since the Treaty of Gyehae signed by Korea and Japan in 1443,they had been trading with each other.However,after the mid-16 th century,Japan began to attack the Korean coast sporadically.Although the Korea had set up a special division for defense,court ministers were keen on dueling factions,paying no attention to the attack.Before the war,Korea’s Political ecology was a mess: bureaucrats at the top were too busy fighting for party faction;petty officials at the bottom were corrupt;institutions were chaotic;people slacked and national defence was weak.And Japan just ended the warring states with strong forces.In 1587,Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent an envoy to Korea to express his intention.Korea failed to cope with Japan and exposed its drawbacks,deviating from the general policy of loyalty to the Ming Dynasty,secretly trading with Japan.In 1590,Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent a letter to the king of Korea,saying that he wanted to invade China through Korea.In response,Korea neither strengthened its defense nor informed the Ming dynasty.In 1592,the Japanese army invaded Korea and occupied Seoul and Pyongyang in just over 20 days.The political ecology in the early yearsof the war was still very messy.Even on the king’s way out,the two bureaucracies fought with each other.The army retreated and the Korean lines were broken.The king dispatched envoys to invite troops from the Ming dynasty.After receiving the promise of the Ming dynasty,the Korean king and ministers settled down in Yizhou and began to enhance the political ecology: renovating the military equipment,appeasing the people’s mind,eliminating the bureaucracy and rewarding the meritorious officials.With the help of the Ming dynasty and the efforts of Korea itself,the Japanese invaders were eventually defeated.The improvement of wartime internal affairs also laid the foundation for the continuation of the Korean dynasty. |
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