Customer Reviews

The Samurai Invasion of Korea 1592-98 (Campaign)

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I enjoyed Turnbull's 2002 edition "Samurai Invasion," but this 2008 version really disappointed me. There is really no new information or insight added from his previous book. But the real disappointment is that it is very dry and boring to read. His elegant and captivating writings from the 2002 classic is missing and the readers are only left with a 90 pager book full of colorful, fancy illustrations.

The publisher 'Cassel & Co." is not reprinting his 2002 edition anymore, so perhaps that prompted him to write a new, inferior book.

I was looking for a condensed version of the Samurai Invasion by the same author with lot more pictures on it but I was dissapointed. There are fewer illustrations than I expected. A major weakness of the book is that Turnbull offers no insight whatsoever on the tactics and strategies of the Ming (Chinese) army which makes the book greatly incomplete!

Stephen Turnbull's The Samurai Invasion of Korea 1592-98 is part of the Osprey Campaign series. Like in most other Turnbull's books, this book proves to be well written, clearly explained and well researched about a subject matter that very few Americans would have any inking about.

The book basically summarized the Japanese invasion of Kingdom of Korea during the 1590s. This was Japan's only act of aggression against a foreign nation until the modern period. The book followed the typical Osprey Campaign model, giving the background, commanders and unit types before hitting the ground running with very nice narrative of the seven year campaign of Taiko Toyotomi Hideyoshi's efforts to rule eastern Asia. I thought the maps, drawings and photographs inserted into this book were quite good and very helpful.

Interestingly, the author often points out his other books that he has written for Osprey to tell the readers that if they wanted to know more, then read this book or that depending on the subject matter pertaining to the war.

If there is a pitfall in this book, this book is basically a shorter version of Turnbull's earlier work, Samurai Invasion that came out in 2004. The author's claims that in this current book, he gave a more balance account of the war. Having read the older book first before reading this book, amount of balance don't seem to justified getting this book if you owned the older book already.

It is also interesting that Stephen Turnbull failed to give some realistic reasons for the cause of this war. He apparently believed that this war was a result of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's megalomaniac dream of an Asian Empire or something that seem more out of some historical TV drama then real history.

But overall, this is a fine book about a subject matter little known to most Americans and Turnbull's gives clarity to the campaign that well reflects his expert knowledge of Japanese history. It is interesting to note that this campaign foretold the collapse of the two major powers that fought so hard over Korea, Ming Dynasty that fell to the Manchus while Toyotomi family that fell to the Tokugawa family.

The Osprey series is a really good series of paperback, expensive, books on various battles throughout history. They are summaries of those battles, but are good summaries, not slapdash. This volume is just one such example. It details the Japanese invation of Korea as the first step towards invading China. It failed. Miserably. Although the conquest of most of Korea was swift (God, how I hate the term "blitzkrieg" being applied to pre-WWII battles!), it soon bogged down after the capture of Pyongyang. The failure is due primarily to three factors: one, the Japanese brutality during its conquest sparked a nationalistic resistance, particularly a guerrilla resistance, second, and more importantly, Korea's navy, under the brilliant leadership of Admiral Yi and his "turtle ships," destroyed the Japanese navy and therefore any chance for reinforcements. When the Chinese finally sent in reinforcements, it was the frosting on the cake.

I have two minor complaints about the book. It fails to mention the political intrigue in the Korean court that was waged against Yi. The double-page maps---and this applies to all of Osprey's books---fold in the middle and that is usually where the details are placed on the map and they are very hard to read; when the maps are on one page, this problem disappears.

Although Asian military historian Stephen Turnbull has dealt with the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592-98 in earlier books, such as The Samurai: A Military History and Samurai Invasion, his recent addition to Osprey's campaign series packs far more material from Korean and Chinese perspectives than his previous work. Although concise, The Samurai Invasion of Korea 1592-98 offers a very balanced account of this campaign and presents an entirely new narrative. Overall, the volume is well-packaged, with a concise narrative that is supported by superb artwork by Peter Dennis and excellent 3-D maps.

Turnbull sketches out the origins of the campaign in a brief introductory section that describes the traditional Japanese wako (pirate) raids on the Korean coast, Korea's vassal status under Ming China and Toyotomi Hideyoshi's grand plans for conquest in Asia. Having unified most of Japan, the Samurai turned to Asia for imperial expansion, viewing Korea merely as a stepping-stone to larger things. In contrast, the Koreans had not prepared any real defense against aggression on this scale and the Chinese were pre-occupied with a host of other security issues. A section on opposing commanders provides capsule biographies on the main leaders on each side. The section on opposing forces has some interesting points, such as the relative importance of early gunpowder weapons (e.g. the harquebus), but the author tends to get a little subjective on some issues, such as describing the Japanese katana (sword) as "the finest edged weapon in the history of warfare." Western Samurai-fanatics tend to get carried away whenever the subject of swords comes up. However, the humble harquebus and iron cannon seemed to have played a larger role in deciding the conflict.

The author begins the narrative describing the initial Japanese `blitzkrieg' (I dislike using 20th Century terminology to describe a 16th Century event; furthermore, the term blitzkrieg implies rapid-paced air-ground operations, which is not appropriate to describing an invasion that moved at the pace of foot soldiers) on Korea, which began with the landing at Pusan in the south and reached Pyongyang just two months later. Actually, the Japanese marched through Korea rapidly (expecting to move into China soon afterward) and never really conquered the land and they were subsequently plagued by an aggressive form of guerrilla warfare (a 19th Century term). As Turnbull describes it, the Japanese campaign was undone by three main factors: (1) failure to anticipate the success of Korea's navy in disrupting their lines of communication back to Japan, (2) failure to deal effectively with the guerrilla threat and (3) the arrival of a large, well-trained Chinese force to contest their invasion of Korea. The Chinese were able to wrest the initiative from the Japanese, defeating their army at Pyongyang and forcing them into retreat. Although the Japanese continued to win tactical victories here and there, they were reduced to fighting merely to maintain a foothold in Korea, no longer intent on conquering the Asian mainland. A second expedition in 1597 briefly reversed the situation, buy within a year the Japanese had lost all their gains.

Turnbull aptly describes this campaign as a "savage act of aggression" by the Japanese and credits it with setting the stage for Tokugawa Ieyasu's seizure of power two years after it ended (the only major Japanese leader not to participate in the campaign). However the author does not seem to draw any real tactical or operational lessons from the campaign and whether it had any influence on later Japanese military developments.

The volume has five 2-D maps (Japan and Korea in 1592; the first invasion, 1592-93; the naval campaign of 1592; Korean guerrilla operations, 1592; the second invasion, 1597) and three 3-D BEV maps (the naval battle of Hansando, 1592; the Chinese recapture Pyongyang, 1593; the second siege of Chinju, 1593). Altogether, the maps effectively support the campaign narrative. The battle scenes by Peter Dennis (the Japanese capture the fortress of Pusan from the Koreans, 1592; Kwon Yul defends Haengju against the Japanese attack, 1593; the death of Admiral Yi at the naval Battle of Noryang, 1598) also help to illustrate critical moments in the campaign. The section on further reading is a bit thin as is `the battlefield today.'

I bought this hoping it would help as a guide to painting my 28mm Choson Korean army. The book is a good read, but was rather disappointing in terms of Korean and Ming Chinese army dress and colors. If you are painting your own army, you probably have seen the painted Perry figures on their website. This book does not go far beyond what is displayed on that website, though it does show a few banners and also some color variations for what I take to be Korean marines. If you are interested in painting guides only, this book will not go very far. If you are interested in reading about the period and the war, then it is worth the money.