A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (17 page)

The first attack came in November 1274. As expected, it came in north-west Ky
sh
. On this occasion Kublai sent about 900 vessels from Korea carrying some 40,000 men. They landed at Hakata, and the invaders immediately forced the Japanese defenders inland. However, instead of pressing on, that night the Mongol forces returned to their ships. Shortly afterwards these suffered extensive damage, along with considerable loss of life of those on board, when a violent storm blew up. The invaders withdrew to Korea, their numbers reduced by a third.

The Japanese were alarmed at their own inferiority in terms of weaponry and cavalry tactics,
⁴³
and strengthened their preparations for an expected second attack.

The Mongol invasion force of June 1281, which again landed at Hakata, was much larger. It comprised no fewer than 4,400 warships and 140,000 men. By this stage Kublai had secured victory over the Sung in 1279, becoming founder of a new dynasty of rulers of China. He had also suffered the insult of having his envoys to Japan beheaded in 1275 and again in 1279. This time he was serious.

But, large as the Mongol forces were, they were met with staunch resistance and were unable to secure a real foothold. Reinforcements arrived a few weeks later from southern China, but, just as the invaders were planning a massive combined assault, another storm blew up in the form of a typhoon and destroyed most of their fleet. Once again they were forced to withdraw, this time with more than half their men lost.

The two Mongol defeats were partly due to the spirited Japanese resistance and partly to their reliance on recently subjugated Chinese and Korean troops, who had little commitment to the Mongol cause. However, the two storms also had an undeniable and very major influence on the outcome. The storm winds became known as
shinp
or
kamikaze
– literally ‘divine wind’, reflecting a Japanese belief that Japan was the Land of the Gods and had been protected by them. The same term was later to be used in the Second World War of the suicide pilots who gave their life in the same cause of protecting the nation.

The recent discovery and recovery of numerous sunken vessels off the island of Takashima, where most of the typhoon damage occurred during the major assault of 1281 under the leadership of a general as opposed to an admiral (Kublai himself took no physical part in either of the actual assaults), reveals that any ‘divine hand’ that may have intervened was definitely assisted by human hands. At that time, Chinese vessels were considered the best in the world, but it is quite clear that poor workmanship, such as looseness in the mast-step (the hole in the central beam that holds the main mast steady), was in the case of many vessels a contributing factor to their inability to ride out a storm. This may have been a result of deliberate sabotage on the part of the Chinese and Korean boat-builders, or it may have been a case of Kublai wanting to attack as soon as possible and putting too much pressure on the workers, ending up with vessels built in haste and by apprentices rather than master shipwrights. The latter scenario, of Kublai’s needless urgency, is strongly supported by the use of so many keel-less river boats, totally unsuited to oceanic conditions and easily capsized in a storm. In short, Kublai and his advisers were no sailors, and botched the job. With the loss at sea of an estimated 70,000 men it still ranks as the world’s greatest-ever single nautical tragedy, and it is surely one of the classic cases of folly in human history.
⁴⁴
Kublai did not give up his intention to invade Japan, and planned a number of subsequent attacks. On each occasion he was diverted by instability elsewhere in his empire. The Japanese knew of his intent and maintained an alert at least till his death in 1294, after which Mongol interest in Japan appears to have waned.

Japan’s victories and survival resulted from a mixture of spirited fighting on their part, poor organisation and morale on the enemy’s part, and sheer good fortune. No doubt the same applies to most military victories regardless of time and place, but in Japan’s case they were particularly favoured by fortune and circumstance.

The external threats may have helped prevent internal fighting, but they also contributed to mounting discontent towards the H
j
sh
gunate. The financial cost of the defence and long-term state of military alert was very great, and severely depleted the sh
gunate’s finances. It was unable to pay promised rewards to warrior families, or even basic
compensation for their contribution to the nation’s defence. This was particularly galling to those families who felt that they themselves, rather than the H
j
, had won the victory. Further discontent was caused by the H
j
decision to instal sh
gunal deputies in Ky
sh
and to concentrate even more posts into their own hands.