Talk:Japanese invasions of Korea (1592-1598)

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Contents 1 Back to focus: grammar 1.1 New edits 2 Neutral POV 3 Suspicious ranges 4 Yi I's Advisory 4.1 Comment: Citation

[edit] Back to focus: grammar

"By 1592, Korean cannons were very powerful, compared to the few cannons Japanese soldiers used. They shot iron cannonballs, but large wooden arrows were used the most often because pf their ability to puncture the side of a Japanese ship, possibly disabling and destroying it."

This should be:

"The Korean cannons were much more powerful than their Japanese counterparts. Large wooden arrows were used to supplement the limited number of cannonballs, and yet they still proved to be effective due to the weakness of the Japanese ships."

And this shouldn't even be in the naval forces section. There's should be a separate section for artillery. The naval force section should actually contain info's about how panokseons were much stronger than the Japanese ships (which was true) & how Japanese had to suspend cannons in the air so that the impacts of firing a cannon would not destroy the ship. (Wikimachine 22:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC))

Another problem. The introductory sentence: "The Japanese invasions of Korea refer to the 1592–1598 Japanese-Korean war masterminded by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, which originally had the professed aim of conquering Ming Dynasty China"

what is "which" describing? Toyotomi Hideyoshi or the war? It is obvious, but it is still grammatically incorrect. Somebody must fix this. (Wikimachine 03:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC))

I fixed this, and I even thought the lead looked pretty good. It read

The Japanese invasions of Korea of 1592-1598 were wars between Japan and Korea in which Japan's professed aim was the subjugation of Ming Dynasty China. Because the invasions were masterminded by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, they are often referred to as Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea or Hideyoshi's Korean Expeditions. They are also known as the Imjin War, in reference to the "Imjin" year in the sexagenary cycle. In reference to its span, the war is also known as the Seven-Year War.

But now you've changed it again, and it reads

The Japanese invasions of Korea, or the Seven-Year War, (also referred as Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea and Hideyoshi's Korean Expeditions in English) occurred between Japan and Korea from 1592 to 1598. Toyotomi Hideoyshi, the Japanese daimyo who had unified Japan, launched the invasion with the professed aim of conquering Ming Dynasty China. They are also known as the Imjin War, in reference to the "Imjin" year in the sexagenary cycle.

Here are my issues with what you did:

1) You made a major change to the article lead and left a completely unrelated edit summary.

2) You added parentheticals to the lead, and there are now seven mid-sentence breaks instead of three.

3) At the same time, you took all of the descriptive information out of the opening sentence. Because "Japanese invasions of Korea" is dealt with as a title, you must describe the meaning of the title in the opening sentence.

4) ...while it bothers me is that your other edits for the day had no edit summaries, appear to have removed information from the article, and made the article less grammatical, I'm not going to call it a POV issue, but there seem to be ownership issues here. I am going to change the lead back to the one I wrote and add that Toyotomi was a kampaku. If you revert me, I'll let it go and apply my efforts elsewhere. Dekimasu 03:52, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

A few more notes:

1) An invasion can't occur between two countries, so you have to fix that if you use your lead. It's referred to as, not referred as.

2) All of these names are English, so there's no reason to write "in English" there. Dekimasu 04:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I saw that. What troubles me the most about Wikimachine's edit is that it deleted any mention of Korean losses of lives and property. The edit hides a lot of other details, such as that Hideyoshi masterminded the invasion. And of course, the edit summary (or the lack of it) hides what the edits were really about.--Endroit 04:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Here are the other edits. I don't like to fight so I'm just going to note them and others can discuss.

During the campaigns, the Japanese army had success on land, occupying parts of the Korean peninsula, while the Korean navy dominated at sea. As the war dragged on, the ravages of war destroyed much of the arable land in Korea. Unable to support their troops reliably by sea, and facing land rendered useless by war in addition to the growing opposition by the allied forces of Korea and China, Japan withdrew. Korea suffered great loss of life and cultural artifacts, as well as long-lasting damage to its economy.

was changed to

The Japanese forces saw initial success on land, and continued failure at sea. In the later years, the Japanese forces suffered heavily, as they continued to push north and found disruptions in its naval supply chain. The Japanese troops withdrew, and invaded for the second time with no avail.

All I'll say is that one is clearly more informative than the other. Dekimasu 04:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I deny any intention of "ownership" or "fight"s. They were all done under good will. Here are my explanations:

• The introductory paragraph... I did not see the necessity of discussing about the name of the article, just because there was a previous conflict about the naming of the article. This is English Wikipedia, so I put all the English titles. I took out Imjin War, because I think that's Korean pronunciation and that is already in the box on the right. About the sexagenery cycle etc., it was already included in the 3rd paragraph. A good essay does not have repetitive contents, especially within the same section. But if you guys don't like it, it's fine.

• No edit summary? My later edits are all under the same intention.

• About this:

During the campaigns, the Japanese army had success on land, occupying parts of the Korean peninsula, while the Korean navy dominated at sea. As the war dragged on, the ravages of war destroyed much of the arable land in Korea. Unable to support their troops reliably by sea, and facing land rendered useless by war in addition to the growing opposition by the allied forces of Korea and China, Japan withdrew. Korea suffered great loss of life and cultural artifacts, as well as long-lasting damage to its economy.

was changed to

The Japanese forces saw initial success on land, and continued failure at sea. In the later years, the Japanese forces suffered heavily, as they continued to push north and found disruptions in its naval supply chain. The Japanese troops withdrew, and invaded for the second time with no avail.

• Shorter and more precise words. "the Japanese army had success on land" is misleading because their successes were mostly in the beginning of the war.
• Destruction of much of the arable land in Korea is extraneous information. I don't think that this relates to anything that the paragraph is talking about.
• "their" and Japan are not in the same number.
• "growing opposition" was never the case.
• "Korea suffered great loss of life and cultural artifacts, as well as..." should be "Korea suffered from much casualties, pillages of cultural artifacts, and economic decline.", and even that is not related to what the paragraph was talking about. The paragraph was summarizing the events of the war. Those analytical infos should be in the later paragraphs. (Wikimachine 06:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC))

I think the destruction of the arable land and the damage to the Korean economy are important statements to make when summarizing the war. Per the guidelines, the article summary should be written with the knowledge that it is all that many people will read. As for the sexagenary cycle, the first sentence of the second paragraph is barely understandable as it stands now. Dekimasu 04:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I've never meant to cause any discontent. You're free to edit in any ways you like. (Wikimachine 23:37, 15 November 2006 (UTC))

[edit] New edits

Here are new edits by an anonymous user.

Also, Korea maintained a certain traditional dependency relationship with the Ming Dynasty of China, although China under the Tang, Sui, and Han dynasties were sometimes friend sometimes enemy of Korea,which gradually formed a single nation from the several states.

I like what he's trying to get at, but I think that this is written in wrong grammar. I'm not quite knowledgeable about the relations that Korea had with Tang, Sui, and many other dynasties, so could the anon user or another Wikipedian correct the grammar in this sentence? (Wikimachine 00:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC))

The above statement should be deleted or revised because its incorrect. Firstly, Ming China was Korea's ally, not neccesarily a country it depended on. Also, during the Tang, Sui, and Han dynasties, Korea (more like Goguryeo) was an large enemy to China. Good friend100 04:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral POV

The article's point of view on, e.g. the participation of Buddhist monks is not neutral. e.g. "Buddhist monks proved to be great leaders and excelled at fighting the Japanese." If Buddhist monks did excel it deserves a cite or examples or something. DavidBofinger 04:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The whole article's messed up. (Wikimachine 02:04, 27 October 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Suspicious ranges

I know almost nothing about Japanese and Korean military technology of this era, but the ranges stated for bows and especialy the muskets is suspicious to me. I think the english longbow was considered a very long ranged bow, and yet I've never read anything reliable that said they could shoot further than 350m if that, yet in this article, we have bows shooting a distance of 380m-460m. It just seems a bit suspicious to me, although I admit I'm not a bow expert. The musket information seems even more suspicious, since in europe in napoleonic times, infantry fired at each other at a range of about 50m, and anything above 150m was considered pointless as you'd never hit a thing. Yet here, over 300 years before napoleon, they are supposed to have muskets copied from the west that can fire 500m? Anyway, I have no absolute facts about these things, I'm just saying I doubt what has been written in the article. -OOPSIE- 14:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Korea had one of the most advanced bows on the entire planet at the time.

"It makes sense that their few firearms were concentrated on boats or on the walls of important cities and fortresses. In their rather limited conflicts in other arenas, Korean bows, which were among the best in Asia and will be discussed below, were generally sufficient to carry the day. And as for cavalry, the Koreans preferred either spears or long battle flails, a weapon which has few parallels elsewhere. The Japanese, on the other hand, had been in a state of almost total war for over a century. The adoption of muskets and their deployment in the hands of relatively untrained peasants allowed a few daimyo to finally carry the day and defeat their rivals. Meanwhile the Chinese used different weapons in different areas depending upon the type of foe they faced. But they, too, increasingly relied upon firearms in the late Ming period, especially in conflicts with recalcitrant tribespeople along the frontiers who resisted the steady encroachment of the expanding Ming state. Larger cannon were, of course, best for attacking or defending the walled cities common in Ming China."

"At this point a few words should be said about missile weapons other than firearms since they proved nearly as important in the respective [End Page 28] arsenals of the belligerents. According to J. L. Boots, the bow and arrow was the one weapon in which the Koreans excelled, both in use and production. In his usual florid way Boots states, "It was the one military practice in which Korean boys longed to become proficient, the one token of martial skill which ever held its own among a people who for thousands of years have preferred silks, pictures, poems, and music, the stately crane in the paddy fields and the knarled [sic] pine on the mountainside."58 Indeed, the diaries of the famed naval commander Yi Sunsin are replete with references to almost daily archery practice. The Korean bow was a composite reflex bow, usually about four feet in length and made of mulberry wood, bamboo, water buffalo horn, and cow sinew spliced together. The bows could be used in different ways and could fire different arrows. They were sometimes even used crossbow fashion to lay down a barrage of covering fire and could also be used from horseback.59 The Koreans sometimes employed poisoned, fire, or exploding arrows, much like the Chinese. Most significantly, Korean bows had tremendous range, being able to cover up to 500 yards, compared to about 350 yards for Japanese long bows."

[1]

What people usually mean by "longer range" when comparing guns and bows, they mean the distance covered when you aim with the weapons. In battles between mass armies, you didn't have to aim. You just had to launch the arrows into the air & they would make a curved launch across the battlefield. With guns, however, you couldn't just shoot them up into the air & expect them to fall down on the enemies. And the Koreans, after having been told the mechanisms behind the guns by a Japanese general who had surrendered, immediately began to manufacture guns (if you can manufacture cannons, you can too guns). So it's not like Koreans would have been at disad even if their bows weren't better. (Wikimachine 02:14, 27 October 2006 (UTC))

Okay, so the dispute concerning the range of Korean bows seems to be settled. Then what about the statement that Japanese musketeers outranged Korean archers? Something needs to be done about that, because anyone who knows anything about the history of firearms will tell you that the range of 16th century muskets was nothing near 500m (more like 50m). Heythatslife 04:38, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

That's original research. We need to fix that. Thanks. (Wikimachine 18:54, 10 December 2006 (UTC))

it certainly is not original research. Cf. Turnbull (not exactly an amateur at military history) and Hawley. Japanese musketeers outranged Korean archers by far. In modern and ancient accounts. I actually bothered to reference that, so... 22:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)(Shogo Kawada 22:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Yi I's Advisory

Could anybody give ref on this? Also, did he really predict the possibility of a Japanese invasion? I thought that the Korean court was not aware of the strength of the Japanese military until they sent the two ambassadors. (Wikimachine 06:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC))

Oh yes, Yi I clearly stated that Korea need an army of 100,000 men to which the Korean king promptly rejected. The two ambassadors were sent to observe of Japanese preparations of war if any. One said Japan was preparing, the other said Japan was not ready to attack Korea. The king listened to the latter. Good friend100 03:25, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

No, but did he know before or after the two ambassadors were sent? Or did he just wish for it without the knowledge of Japanese invasion? (Wikimachine 03:31, 14 November 2006 (UTC))

Before the ambassadors were sent. -- General Tiger

Yi I was a prominent scholar in Korea and he predicted an invasion from Japan and strongly suggested that Korea begin training more men and repairing castles. The king basically didn't know what was going on. Good friend100 13:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

There is a record that Ming and Korea planned preemptive attack on Japan though it was not carried out because of the weak naval force. 宣祖 27卷 25年 6月 26日 (甲寅) 008 / 왜란이 일어나기 전 명나라가 우리 나라와 유구 등이 합쳐 일본을 치려던 당시 상황에 대한 기록 --Jjok 04:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment: Citation

If we ever hope to do anything about grammar, we need to keep proper referencing in mind because later or eventually we would have to go through the article, do a proper wipe with all the claims in the articles w/ citations. That means that whatever grammar we fix now, or whatever info we put in, they might get lost or be fruitless later on. (Wikimachine 01:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC))

I have some reservations about the rampant original research going on in this and some other articles. Wikipedia policy is to cite reputable secondary and tertiary sources, like academic journals and authoritative media. If each person selectively quotes and interpretes parts of ancient foreign language primary documents, this article would become a battleground of original research, rather than a an encyclopedia article. Frankly, Jjok's personal selection of sentences to translate, without historical context, from the centuries-old, foreign-language multi-volume compilations are pretty obviously intended to make a certain personal point, rather than providing an objective, scholarly, contextual overview of the article subject. Korealist 08:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Which part is an original research?　Korealist is making an emotional opinion. Please point out a concrete mistake. --211.3.125.56 10:47, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:NOR. It says: "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, verifiable, published secondary sources wherever possible. This means that we present accounts of views and arguments of reliable, verifiable scholars, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read the primary source material for themselves." DanKim 18:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Look 211.3.125.56, let me explain to you clearly why your sources are original research. Let's just say that Jews and Palestinians had a war 2,000 years ago. Why would basing infos from either the Jewish historians or the Palestinian historians be false? Because Jewish people could write only from their own point of view & Palestinians from the other. That's why we can't use primary sources to settle controversial matters because they are POV. So, we use secondary and tertiary sources because they've been written by another party or historians in the 20th & 21st centuries who have studied resources from the both sides & know NPOV. (Wikimachine 03:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC))