Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/36

 of such vessels the Korean forces attacked the Japanese transports in Fusan harbour, and at other points along the Korean coast, and almost completely destroyed them. China, on being appealed to, sent army after army to the rescue of her vassal, and although these troops did not greatly distinguish themselves, their dead-weight added to the Korean forces confined the Japanese advance to Pingyang—the invaders finally retiring and evacuating Korea in 1598 as a result of their sea-losses and their domestic dissensions. The country had, however, been so terribly ravaged during six long years that it never recovered. The slaughter was so immense that there is shown in Kyoto to this day a mound under which are buried the pickled noses and ears of 35,000 Chinese and Korean troops killed by the clan of Satsuma.

Now just as the Shogun Yoshimitsu for political purposes had accepted investiture at the hands of a Chinese envoy, so did Hideyoshi after his defeat accept—unknowingly so Japanese historians declare—from the Chinese envoys a document which can have but one meaning. So important is its text as an explanation of the nature of the conflict between the two nations—China claiming a cultural supremacy