There is ample written evidence to show that during the early centuries after the time of Christ friendly intercourse regularly existed between China and Japan. Embassies were sent to and from on various missions. These were always dispatched upon the accession to the throne of an emperor to offer congratulations from his brother across the Yellow Sea.
The records show that in a.d. 776 a Chinese embassy with a personnel consisting of 178 persons came to Japan bearing felicitations and presents to the Emperor, Konin-Tenno. The vessel in which this embassy was embarked was wrecked in a typhoon off the Japanese coast and but 46 of the distinguished company were saved. In 779 the Japanese embassy sent to reciprocate these greetings landed near Fukui. In 883 orders emanating from Kyoto went to the provinces north of the capital to repair bridges and roads, bury dead bodies, and remove all obstacles because the Chinese envoys were coming that way.
In the twelfth century civil disorders in both countries apparently interrupted these exchanges of amenities between the rulers of the Asiatic empires. Communications ceased for some decades.
In China the Mongol Tartars overthrew the Sung dynasty and conquered the adjacent countries. The Mongol Emperor, Kublai Khan, at whose court Marco Polo and his uncles were then residing, sent through the Koreans letters to Japan demanding tribute and homage. Chinese envoys came to Kamakura, but Hojo Tokiume, its lord, grew enraged at these insolent demands and sent the embassy home in disgrace. Six more embassies were sent in succession to Japan. They were sharply rejected, and the tension between the two countries increased with each declension.
An expedition of 10,000 men was sent from China against the Mikado. It landed at Tsushima and Iki. It was attacked and its commander was slain. The island of Kiushu roused to defense. The Chinese expedition returned home and reported defeat.
The Mongol Emperor then sent nine envoys, who upon arrival at Kamakura announced that they would remain until a definite and satisfactory answer was returned to China. The Japanese reply was a wholesale beheading of this mission.
The Japanese now prepared for war. Troops were sent to guard Kyoto. Weapons were prepared for service, and armies were levied and drilled. Junks were built to guard the sea.
Once more Chinese envoys came to demand tribute. Again the Japanese reply consisted of flourishes of the decapitating sword. The heads of the emissaries fell at Daizanfu on Kiushu in 1279.
The Mongol Emperor then prepared a great punitive expedition. The army numbered 100,000 Chinese and Tartars and 7,000 Koreans. The armada placed in condition to transport this huge force consisted of 3,500 junks. Many of these craft were of considerable size, larger than the Japanese had ever before seen. Hundreds of the junks were armed with engines of European warfare which their Venetian guests had taught the Mongols to construct.
In July, 1281, the armada appeared off the island of Kiushu and sailed to the city of Daizanfu, the scene of the ineffable immolation. The great fleet anchored off the port.
Against the Mongol junks the Japanese had small chance of success. But despite the disparity of size and war equipment the war craft of the Nipponese were swifter and lighter than those of their enemies, and they maneuvered more easily. The Japanese hovered around the outskirts of the armada, darting in and attacking whenever the opportunity offered. Many Japanese junks were sunk by missiles and stones hurled from catapults mounted on Mongol decks. A party of 30 Japanese swam out to an isolated enemy junk, seized it, and beheaded the crew. This feat was again attempted, but the aroused Mongols discovered the swimmers in time and killed them in the water. One Japanese officer with a picked crew boarded a Mongol junk in broad daylight, running his boat alongside and capturing the vessel in spite of the loss of his arm. After a hand-to-hand fight he set the ship on fire, beheaded his captives, and escaped with his men before the Mongols could reach him.
As a result of these cutting-out parties the armada arranged itself in a circle, linking each vessel to its neighbors with iron chains and anchoring the weaker junks inside this cordon. In addition to the catapults bow guns shooting heavy darts were mounted on the Mongol decks. The Japanese craft continued to keep up a guerrilla warfare—if that term may be borrowed from its legitimate employment—and inflicted considerable damage, but their own losses continued heavy.
Though the armada was well protected by the cordon and their chains and possessed the advantages of superior equipment and greater size, the Mongols proved unable to effect a landing in force. Their small detachments were cut off or driven into the sea as soon as they reached the shore. From these skirmishes the defending Japanese soldiers soon obtained over 2,000 Mongol heads. A line of fortifications many miles in extent, consisting of earthworks and wooden defenses, was now erected along the shore line.
The whole Japanese nation was aroused, Re-enforcements poured in from the other islands. The earthworks were improved. The Japanese junks kept nibbling at the armada.
In solemn state the Emperor visited the Chief Priest of Shinto, wrote out petitions to the gods, and sent the priest as a messenger to the shrines of Ise. It is recorded as a miraculous fact that at the hour of noon, precisely as the Emperor’s envoy arrived at the shrines and offered the Prayers—the day, prior to that moment, being perfectly clear—a cloud appeared in the sky. It soon overspread the heavens. It grew into an immense, black mass.
An appalling typhoon burst upon the armada. The chains of the cordon broke. The junks, great and small, were helpless m the grip of the great storm. They crashed into each other. They drifted ashore and smashed upon the rocks. They careened over, filled, sank by the hundreds. Corpses drifted in to the shore, piled up thickly in the raging surf. The wind was frightful in its screaming, relentless violence.
Those vessels of the Mongols which survived were blown helplessly out to sea. Some of them may have reached the mainland of Korea or China. If they did accomplish that feat, I have been unable to find any record of it. A considerable number of Chinese junks which survived the outbreak of the storm drifted upon Taka Island in a sinking condition and were wrecked. The crews of these ships established themselves on the island and began felling trees to build boats in which to reach Korea. The Japanese searched out these survivors and attacked them in a fierce, bloody struggle. The end of it was not long in doubt. The Mongols were driven into the sea to drown or were beheaded as captured. Three were intentionally spared. They were sent by the Japanese back to China to relate to their emperor the fate of his armada.
The Japanese ascribed the destruction of the Tartar fleet to the interposition of the gods of Ise, who thenceforth were considered the guardians of the seas and winds. Nearly six centuries after the destruction of the Mongol armada, when Commodore Perry anchored his ships in the bay of Yeddo, the imperial court sent orders to the Shinto priests at the shrines of Ise to offer up prayers for the sweeping away of the barbarians. But the tutelary deities saw fit in their inscrutable wisdom to suffer the presence and peaceful departure of the Westerners with the far-reaching consequences resulting from their missions.