Download A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail: Ming China and the by Kenneth M. Swope PDF

The invasion of Korea by means of eastern troops in may possibly of 1592 used to be no usual army excursion: it was once one of many decisive occasions in Asian historical past and the main tragic for the Korean peninsula till the mid-twentieth century. jap overlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi predicted conquering Korea, Ming China, and finally all of Asia; yet Korea’s entice China’s Emperor Wanli for assistance brought on a six-year conflict related to thousands of infantrymen and encompassing the entire area. For Japan, the warfare used to be “a dragon’s head by way of a serpent’s tail”: a powerful starting with out genuine ending.

Kenneth M. Swope has undertaken the 1st full-length scholarly research in English of this significant clash. Drawing on Korean, eastern, and particularly chinese language assets, he corrects the Japan-centered viewpoint of prior money owed and depicts Wanli now not because the self-indulgent ruler of obtained interpretations yet relatively one actively engaged in army affairs—and involved in particular with rescuing China’s customer country of Korea. He places the Ming in a extra full of life mild, detailing chinese language siege conflict, the improvement and deployment of cutting edge army applied sciences, and the naval battles that marked the climax of the struggle. He additionally explains the war’s repercussions outdoors the army sphere—particularly the dynamics of intraregional international relations in the shadow of the chinese language tributary system.

What Swope calls the 1st nice East Asian struggle marked either the emergence of Japan’s wish to expand its sphere of effect to the chinese language mainland and an army revival of China’s dedication to protecting its pursuits in Northeast Asia. Swope’s account deals new perception not just into the heritage of war in Asia but additionally right into a clash that reverberates in diplomacy to this day.