Could the Japanese have conquered Korea and China...

Could the Japanese have conquered Korea and China, and was it a pipedream and an excuse to murder and enslave hundreds of thousands of innocent Koreans?

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zh.m.wikisource.org/wiki/明史/卷320
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule#Economy_and_modernization
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Yes.

*or was it

>Koreans
>Innocent
pick one

>Could the Japanese have conquered Korea and China
what time period are we discussing?

Because if its 1937 they had already conquered Korea 42 years earlier.

>innocent Koreans
They know what they did.

The time period the monument comes from, clearly.

What would they have done tho?

would they have turned them into honorable Nipponese citizens and taught them the language, or would they force them to toil away at being silly mongolian gajin peasants who became slaves to the nippon race?

and what time is that, the late 16th century invasion?

Certainly not considering they failed to even conquer Korea, much less the Mings.

No. The Japanese were grossly overstretched and couldn't control the Korean populace that fled their fields.

China is way too fucking big for Japan to control.

It's often a pattern in Chinese history that someone (whether internal or external) can conquer the northern plains of China, but then stall when trying to conquer the more mountainous southern regions.

Eh, the Mongols and the Manchus succeeded in conquering southern China. The trick is to get enough local Chinese to side.with the invaders (by bribing them or through fear or through loyalty, whatever works).

No but it didn't stop Perfidious Japan and the Eternal Yamato from trying

>to get enough local Chinese to side with the invader
Splendid job the IJA did at that.

Probably. The Japanese who huge sinoboos. Kinda like the Mongols.

>Could have conquered Korea
They did
>Could have conquered China
Maybe, China is huge but they did take a big part of it when they took Manchuria. Even Europeans couldn't conquer China so I can't see Japan.

Yup, no wonder they failed in the 20th C.

How well did Hideyoshi's land forces actually do against the Ming military (not the Koreans) while the Japanese were busy being wrecked at sea by Admiral Yi?

>How well did Hideyoshi's land forces actually do against the Ming military
Mixed performance. The Japanese were logistically confined to their fortresses and erroneously applied their feudal system to Korean peasants who promptly fled their lands.

They struggled to counter Ming cavalry forces out in the open despite their overwhelming numbers(Byeokjegwan) or the battle would reach a stalemate(Jiksan).

They were far more successful in defensive sieges where they were able to hold off long enough for a relief force(First Ulsan) or they would sally out and rout the invading force(Sacheon).

In the official "Ming History" the summary of the war is this: 自倭亂朝鮮七載,喪師數十萬,糜餉數百萬,中朝與屬國迄無勝算,至關白死而禍始息。
From zh.m.wikisource.org/wiki/明史/卷320
The section comes after 26th year, 11th month.

Translation: During the 7 years of the Japanese invasion of Korea, hundreds of thousands of men were lost, millions of grain were lost, China and its vassal [Korea] had no chance of victory until the Regent [Hideyoshi] died and the disaster came to an end.

PS The idea that Admiral Yi was this amazing admiral that single-handedly defeated the Japanese navy is hagiography / propaganda. He was a good admiral but he was never able to break Japanese command of the sea between Kyushu and Pusan. What he did was to prevent the Japanese navy from extending their command of the sea into the west coast of Korea (which was a strategically important thing to do).

>zh.m.wikisource.org/wiki/明史/卷320
Oops forgot to add that it was the 26th year of Wanli.

Ofcourse they could. Their problem was that they ended up in a war with Britian, USA, Russia, France, India, Australia, etc etc with only one real ally.

I suggest you read "A summary of the restitution of Korea by the military commissioner" 《經略復國要编》

The History of the Ming is a secondary source compiled during the Qing dynasty which had an incentive to exaggerate the financial and human cost of the venture.

If the Ming truly lost hundreds of thousands of men then this purported number of casualties would be double if not triple the actual amount of Ming soldiers stationed in Korea.

If there was no chance of a Ming/Korean victory then the Japanese wouldn't have entered negotiations or change their goals from outright conquest of the Ming empire to controlling southern Korea.

The official Ming history is probably talking about the total tally, Chinese and Korean dead and the total cost of the war.
In any case, there probably was no chance of decisive Ming/Korean victory. Especially if you mean evicting the Japanese forces from their newly built castles in southern Korea. On the other hand, the Japanese couldn't win a decisive victory against the Ming and Korea either.
So it ended in a stalemate. That's why both sides entered negotiations.
Also, if that's you I generally agree with your military assessment as well. Except that at Byeokjegwan, the Ming cavalry was rendered useless and the Japanese won (which is why General Li now wanted to negotiate the first ceasefire). The Ming army in turn managed to burn the food supply for the Japanese forces, which now made the Japanese side want to negotiate the ceasefire of 1593.
I'm pointing out that the Chinese look back to this war in a glum way. And the official Japanese retrospective is also negative. This non-triumphalist outlook on the war probably contributed to the relative peace between the 3 countries for the next 300 years.

>The official Ming history is probably talking about the total tally, Chinese and Korean dead and the total cost of the war.
The Ming only had about 30,000 casualties nowhere near "hundreds of thousands".

The Imjin War had a comparatively high grain expenditure as the Joseon court was unable to provide the necessary logistic support and the year's harvest were left fallow(much to the consternation of the Japanese).

>In any case, there probably was no chance of decisive Ming/Korean victory.
Maybe not during the first major expeditionary force but during the last few mobilizations.

Historical failed sieges shouldn't be used as evidence that the Ming would have failed in every situation.

The 1593 Siege of Pyongyang could have ended up like 1st Ulsan if Otomo Yoshimune reinforced Konishi Yukinaga.

Likewise,if the Kato's reinforcements during 1st Ulsan refused to commit,delayed or arrived late there would have been a different outcome.

> Except that at Byeokjegwan, the Ming cavalry was rendered useless and the Japanese won (which is why General Li now wanted to negotiate the first ceasefire).
They weren't useless,Tachibana Muneshige's vanguard force was reduced by more than two thirds.

Li Rusong only have a combined force of 5,000 cavalry with the initial 3,000 recorded in "Annals of King Seonjo" and the 2,000 reinforcements attested in "A summary of the restitution of Korea by the military commissioner".

Their enemy had more than quadruple their number(maximum of 30,000+ if we include reinforcements that saw little to no action).

Even if Li was able to rout Japanese the Ming mobilized far fewer men.(35,000~ compared to 158,000 in Korea alone,though by1593 attrition would have taken its toll on the Japanese force).

>I'm pointing out that the Chinese look back to this war in a glum way.
The war was mostly ignored until more recent history revived its discussion in China(Qing,WW2).

>Could the Japanese have conquered Korea and China
Yes. With claiming of it as native regions of Japanese.
>murder and enslave hundreds of thousands of innocent Koreans
Enemy propaganda and post-war memes.

Well conquering China was always just about taking the position of Emperor and then the Mandate of Heaven meant you're now in power.

I think it's feasible that they could have done so.

I am talking about the 1590s invasion of course.

Got rekt a few times

Generally had the upper hand in most battles

Got cucked out of logistics by the Gook admiral (with Ming help) though

The """"""Official""""""" Ming history was written by their literal ursupers a century later.

Surely unbiased

Not with those stupid ships and lack of cannon, you don't

They did conquer Korea.

>Enemy propaganda and post-war memes.

Also, Japanese colonialism in Korea was one of the best examples of how colonialism can actually benefit a nation. See for yourself.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule#Economy_and_modernization

Just look at the diagrams. Literally everything improved.

>can't figure out historical time periods based upon pictures of historical monuments

Wew where do you think you are

>ignore all the rape, cultural destruction, and ethnic cleansing

Where does this meme come from? North Korea?
There was no ethnic cleansing during Japanese rule in the 20th C. What existed was a policy of assimilation.
You can call that cultural genocide, as the Dalai Lama says, but there was no widespread physical removal of Koreans from the Korean peninsula or cultural destruction.

Okay, perhaps not "literally everything," but you see my point, right? There are a lot of improvements which took place in Korea. I mean, shoot dude, even the number of Koreans consistently rose.

The Japanese made major improvements in Korea.