This righteous army is also referred to as the Korean guerillas, a force who aided in the defeat of the Japanese along with the force of the Sino-Korean Alliance. Hideyoshi is quoted as saying, “If we were to stop the troops and sue for peace, then what?,” and the subordinates replied with, “that would be best.” This ultimate defeat marked an end to Hideyoshi’s “dream of an Asiatic empire” (Swope).
Like many events in history, proper documentation and unbiased, primary sources are not always easy to find. The Imjin Invasion is “little known and poorly understood in the West.” Most of this can be credited to the fact that not a single full length scholarly treatment of the conflict exists in English and the existence of many of the flawed interpretations of the war due to reliance upon biased or inaccurate source materials (Swope). Many of the writings on the Imjin Invasion use one sided sources or something that has been translated through multiple languages, causing a lot of meaning to be lost. Chinese secondary works tend either to “denigrate the incompetence of the Ming or praise China’s heroic defense of its helpless little neighbor” (Swope). In addition to these skewed interpretations, many sources do not put enough emphasis on the importance of …show more content…
The people were infuriated over the state of Korea and the royal family understood that they would have to take immediate action in order to please the people and remain in power. Surprisingly, the government and ruling class “sincerely repented of their pre-war misdeeds” and were able to sustained reform measures, allowing the Choson dynasty and yangban class to survive for as long as 300 years after the war (Woo). In a source from Kim Woo, he calls it a “historical paradox” because of the potential of national misfortune turning into a benefit for a country in the long run, which is exactly what occurred in Choson Korea following the war
Like many events in history, proper documentation and unbiased, primary sources are not always easy to find. The Imjin Invasion is “little known and poorly understood in the West.” Most of this can be credited to the fact that not a single full length scholarly treatment of the conflict exists in English and the existence of many of the flawed interpretations of the war due to reliance upon biased or inaccurate source materials (Swope). Many of the writings on the Imjin Invasion use one sided sources or something that has been translated through multiple languages, causing a lot of meaning to be lost. Chinese secondary works tend either to “denigrate the incompetence of the Ming or praise China’s heroic defense of its helpless little neighbor” (Swope). In addition to these skewed interpretations, many sources do not put enough emphasis on the importance of …show more content…
The people were infuriated over the state of Korea and the royal family understood that they would have to take immediate action in order to please the people and remain in power. Surprisingly, the government and ruling class “sincerely repented of their pre-war misdeeds” and were able to sustained reform measures, allowing the Choson dynasty and yangban class to survive for as long as 300 years after the war (Woo). In a source from Kim Woo, he calls it a “historical paradox” because of the potential of national misfortune turning into a benefit for a country in the long run, which is exactly what occurred in Choson Korea following the war