the Not so Mongol Invasions of Japan

The Mongols under the Great Khans were truly one of a kind, forming the second-largest empire in History, right above the Russians but a fair bit short of the British. They went nearly everywhere in Asia, from the coasts of the Song to the eastern regions of Europe and Anatolia. Only three places have escaped their touch: the inhospitable lands of Siberia, the Indian Peninsula, and Japan. Now anyone who knows a bit about Japan’s history might be surprised by this, as the two great Mongol invasions are a big part of the Island Nation’s past. Now I am not denying these attacks ever happened, but rather that our favourite horse riders had very little to do with them. Let me explain. 

 

Now the main reason why the idea that the Mongols tried to invade Japan on two separate occasions stemmed from the fact that both events were led by Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan Dynasty and grandson of Genghis Khan. The problem with this is that Kublai, after the fragmentation of the great Mongol empire, fully embraced Chinese culture and turned his back on his nomadic ancestry. I mean, the empire fell into a civil war when Möngke Khan died because the Mongol nobility saw Kublai as more Chinese. He ran his court following customs and traditions like previous emperors, and his armies employed Chinese and vassalized Koreans.  

After taking over much of the Chinese region, Kublai decided to expand his domain eastward into the Japanese archipelago. After asking nicely if the Kamakura could bend the knee and submit to the Yuan, where the shogun replied by ghosting the envoys, greatly angering Kublai. As such, despite still dealing with the last strongholds of the Song in the south, the Yuan and its Goryeo vassal prepared their invasion force. To say this first military contact was a total mess would be an understatement, as neither side had any clue what they were doing. 

 On the Yuan side, mainly due to the fact that Mongols and Chinese were never big on large-scale seamanship and as such had to figure out everything from scratch. As such, Kublai left the problem to the Koreans of Goryeo, who had far more knowledge in shipbuilding, but even for them the task was difficult as they rarely ventured into the open ocean. All of this resulted in a fleet composed of river and coastal vessels which, although they did the trick, left the fleet cruelly vulnerable to the weather. Once the fleet was ready, Kublai's host numbered over 30,000, with the vast majority of them being composed of native Chinese (Han, Hui, Zhuang and more), and Koreans, with maybe a few hundred Mongols.  

On the Japanese side, things weren’t much better, the Kamakura shogunate was fragmented between the various clans and failed to mount a proper response to the incoming attack. Tsuchima, defended by a few hundred men, was easily captured by the Yuan army, and after killing nearly everyone set to Hakata Bay, once again making quick work of the defenders, not even ten thousand strong. The Yuan also introduced Japan to gunpowder warfare in the form of throwing bombs in the face of the samurai.  However, unlike popular belief, the samurai were going around the battlefield challenging individual soldiers. 

Despite these early victories, the commanders of the Yuan army were fearful of their poor supply line, hampered by a lack of naval presence, and so decided to retreat. Here, it is widely believed a typhoon hit the retreating ships and destroyed most of the fleet. However, historians today can’t really agree how accurate this tale is. Records of these events are contradictory, and while Japanese texts talk of a ‘divine wind’ that saved Japan. Meanwhile, Korean records make no mention of a typhoon hitting at this time, just that the weather was turning bad. 

Whatever happened, Kublai was undeterred by this failure and, after finishing off the Song, now could focus his full force on the Japanese. This time, he returned with an army over a hundred thousand strong, mostly conscripted from the south and surviving Song troops, and a more organized navy. On the other hand, the Kamakura were more prepared for the landing, meeting the Yuan host with not only a larger force but heavily fortified positions. The invasion was far less successful this time, the Yuan soldiers were cut down on the beach before fleeing back into the sea. This time, a Typhoon did hit the fleet, destroying the fragile and unstable vessels almost to the last. 

Kublai would never return to Japan, preoccupied by other endeavours in Indochina and internal instabilities.