Imjin War · War Crimes & Atrocities
The Imjin War's atrocities were not, for the most part, the frenzy of a sack — they were policy, and two of them were accounting. Hideyoshi paid his commanders by verified kill and heads were too bulky to ship, so noses were taken by the barrel, salted, and sent to Kyoto with certified counts; the quotas did not distinguish soldiers from farmers, or the dead from the living. He ordered Jinju destroyed and everyone inside killed to erase a personal humiliation, during peace negotiations, with nothing strategic at stake. And the second invasion is called the Pottery War in Japan because the abduction of Korean craftsmen was an objective rather than a by-product. The Korean side has less to answer for here, mostly because it never held enemy territory — but the court tortured its own best admiral on a forgery, and the *uibyeong* militias dealt with collaborators without much process. The most durable monument the war produced is the Mimizuka in Kyoto, a mound of tens of thousands of Korean noses, and it still stands.
8,500+
deaths
Victims: The garrisons and much of the civilian population of two fortress towns(Japanese accounts claim around 8,500 killed at Busan alone; Korean accounts describe both towns as annihilated)
Victims: Villagers in districts where the righteous armies operated(Never counted; the cumulative toll of reprisal, requisition, and the resulting famine dwarfs the battle deaths)
60,000+
deaths
Victims: The garrison and some 60,000 civilians sheltering inside the fortress(Korean accounts give around 60,000 killed; the figure is contested but no account describes survivors in numbers)
Victims: Korean soldiers and civilians across the southern provinces(The Mimizuka is thought to hold around 38,000 noses; the true number taken across the war is unknown and certainly higher)
10,000+
deaths
Victims: The Korean and Ming garrison and the city's population(Estimates around 10,000, including some 3,000 Ming troops; contemporary accounts describe near-total destruction)
Victims: Korean potters, printers, metalworkers, weavers, and scholars, and their families(Tens of thousands deported; many more sold on by Portuguese slave traders operating out of Nagasaki)
Victims: The commander of the Korean navy, on a forged Japanese intelligence report(He survived; his replacement then lost virtually the entire fleet in a single night)
Victims: The Japanese garrison, and the Korean labourers trapped inside with them(Thousands died of cold, thirst, and hunger in twelve days; the Korean conscripts building the fortress were trapped inside it)
Victims: Ming and Korean dead and wounded after the battle(Shimazu's own records claim over 38,000 noses taken; the figure is self-reported and served as a bounty claim)
Victims: Tens of thousands of Koreans, soldiers and civilians together(Estimated to contain around 38,000 noses; it was originally and more accurately called the Hanazuka — the nose mound)