The Imjin War was one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history. Hundreds of thousands were killed. Hundreds of thousands were enslaved. Entire regions were depopulated – former provincial capitals turned into ghost towns. In this episode there is weeping without end; pain without ceasing. An entire people abused and mistreated. This is the story of that conflict – The Imjin War.

It’s all here and it’s all free on Battlecast – the world’s foremost podcast on war and its sociopolitical impact.

This is part four of a four part series. You can find part one here; part two here; and part three here.

Download episode 61 here

Maps and Illustrations:

References:

Samurai invasion: Japan’s Korean war by Stephen Turnbull (2002)

Book of Corrections: Reflections on the National Crisis During the Japanese Invasion of Korea, 1592-1598 by Song-Nyong Yu and Byonghyon Choi  

Imjin changch’o: Admiral Yi Sun-sin’s memorials to court by Sun-sin Yi. Translated by Ha Tse-hung

Admiral Yi Sun-sin of Korea by Jong-dae Kim. Translated by Philip K Rhyu

Nanjung Ilgi: War Diary of Admiral Yi Sun-sin by Yi Sun-shin. Translated by Ha Tae-hung.

A history of Korea: from “Land of the Morning Calm” to states in conflict by Jinwung Kim

A concise history of Korea: from antiquity to the present by Michael Seth

A concise history of Japan by Brett Walker

The Cambridge history of Japan volumes 3 and 4 edited by Kozo Yamamura and John Whitney Hall 

The Imjin War by Samuel Hawley 

The samurai invasion of Korea by Stephen Turnbull 

A dragon’s head and a serpent’s tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592-1598 by Swope, Kenneth M. (2009)

The Japanese experience by W.G. Beasley

The Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, translated by William Scott Wilson

Samurai wisdom by Thomas Cleary

A history of Japan by R.H.P. Mason and J.G. Caiger