Imjin War 1592-98: Joseon Korea's Epic Struggle for Survival

In 1592, fresh from unifying Japan after more than a century of civil war, Toyotomi Hideyoshi unleashed a battle-hardened army across the Korea Strait. His ambition was extraordinary: to subdue Joseon Korea and open the road to the conquest of Ming China. What followed was the largest armed conflict of the sixteenth century – a seven-year struggle involving hundreds of thousands of troops and devastating the Korean Peninsula.

Joseon was dangerously unprepared. More than two centuries of relative peace had weakened its defences, and Japanese forces swept from Busan to the capital with breathtaking speed. Yet conquest proved far harder than invasion. Across Korea, soldiers, civilians and the ‘Righteous Armies’ fought back; Ming China intervened on an unprecedented scale; and at sea Admiral Yi Sun-sin and his cannon-armed fleet shattered Japanese hopes of maritime supremacy. Sieges, guerrilla warfare, naval battles, diplomacy and the rapidly expanding use of gunpowder weapons turned Korea into the cockpit of Northeast Asia.

Drawing on Korean, Japanese and Chinese sources, M. G. Haynes reconstructs this vast but still little-known war through the eyes of a long-serving military officer and combat veteran who spent 22 years living and working in the region. His analysis places command decisions, terrain, logistics, weapons and politics at the heart of the story. The narrative is supported by detailed campaign mapping, extensive author photography taken during visits to the battlefields, fortifications and historic sites of Korea and Japan, and a major suite of specially commissioned colour artwork depicting the soldiers, sailors and warriors of Joseon Korea, Ming China and Japan.

The Imjin War 1592–1598 is the story of a kingdom brought to the brink of destruction, an invasion ultimately frustrated by resistance on land and command of the sea, and a conflict whose consequences echoed across East Asia for centuries.