The Winter Siege of Ulsan

Ulsan Wajo: The Defence and Relief

Jun 7, 2008 Grant Sebastian Nell

In January 1598, the vastly outnumbered Japanese garrison of Ulsan resisted the assaults of a numerically superior allied Chinese/Korean army.

The tiny wajo of Ulsan was to be the scene of one of the bitterest sieges in the Japanese occupation of Korea, or Imjin War. It was held by 7000 Japanese against a vastly superior allied Chinese/Korean army whose main objective was the mighty wajo of Seosaengpo.

On the 29th of January 1598, led by General’s Yang Hao and Ma Gui, the 36000 strong Ming army arrived at Ulsan in the freezing pre-dawn darkness, accompanied by 11,500 Koreans under the command of Gwon Yul. A detachment of Chinese soldiers burnt the barracks outside the unfinished walls of Ulsan, forcing the Japanese troops into the fortress, pursued by thousands of Chinese and Korean warriors.

Fierce Japanese musketry did not prevent the Ming troops from entering the castle. In desperation, the Japanese opened another gate and mounted a ferocious counter-charge against the Ming flank, eventually driving them off.

The Siege of Ulsan

The Chinese now encamped around the walls of Ulsan. Cannon were brought to bear but due to the rugged landscape they were unable to get close enough for their fire to be of maximum effect. The Ming resorted to human wave attacks. On the first day, they managed to penetrate the unfinished gates and burnt invaluable Japanese storage boxes, causing a conflagration so intense it killed thousands of Japanese labourers in the suffocating heat and smoke.

The Japanese garrison, led by Daimyo Kato Kiyomasa, resisted desperately. A samurai named Reizei Motomitsa slaughtered at least 15 Chinese soldiers with his naginata. The Chinese were equally relentless, mounting attack after attack, scaling the huge mounds of corpses against the walls in their thousands. The garrison kept them out with concentrated volleys of musketry and furious hand-to-hand fighting.

The Japanese held out for ten days as they awaited reinforcements. By that time, they were eating horsemeat roasted on fires fuelled with broken Chinese arrows and many had not slept for days. The lack of a well meant that the defenders also had to endure the torments of thirst. A rain-storm provided the defenders with much-needed relief but also brought about a drop in temperature so savage that many soldiers on both sides froze to death.

The Relief of Ulsan

Having fought each other to a standstill, both sides subsided into an exhausted silence. A Japanese scouting force from Seosaengpo managed to climb a hillock across the river and waved their banners in the hopes of attracting the garrisons attention. The Ming army, realising that the arrival of a Japanese relief force was imminent, made one last desperate attempt to take the castle.

The Japanese relief army from Seosaengpo attacked the Chinese rear, inflicting heavy casualties. After thirteen days of savage fighting in appalling winter weather, the garrison of Ulsan was finally relieved.

Despite terrible Japanese casualties, the siege of Ulsan proved the effectiveness of the Japanese castle design in withstanding assault. It’s political repercussions were of little consequence, because the Japanese were to shortly withdraw from Korea.

Sources

Japanese Castles in Korea, 1592-98 ,Stephen Turnbull

2007, Osprey

Warriors of Medieval Japan, Stephen Turnbull, 2005, Osprey.

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