Topic: Korean Archers and Mongol Invasions of Japan

Were Korean archers used during these invasions?

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Re: Korean Archers and Mongol Invasions of Japan

Hi there, I know this post is over a year old, but I came here to answer your question and say that it looks like Korean archers were used in the Mongol invasions. Records indicate that thousands of Korean soldiers were deployed in the invasion fleets. And Japanese artwork in the famous "Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba" or Mongol Invasion Scrolls, shows what appear to be both Korean and Mongol archers.

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Re: Korean Archers and Mongol Invasions of Japan

BumblingBodkin wrote:

Hi there, I know this post is over a year old, but I came here to answer your question and say that it looks like Korean archers were used in the Mongol invasions. Records indicate that thousands of Korean soldiers were deployed in the invasion fleets. And Japanese artwork in the famous "Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba" or Mongol Invasion Scrolls, shows what appear to be both Korean and Mongol archers.

Thanks BB.  By any chance do you have any good records you could recommend that may be translated into English?

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4 (edited by geoarcher 2018-12-14 01:42:21)

Re: Korean Archers and Mongol Invasions of Japan

Also, I've seen the Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba a few times but was wondering which ones precisely were Korean archers:

https://web.archive.org/web/20131031190 … /e_04.html

I always thought it may be the one's in the back as they seem to look like Korean auxiliary soldiers from that time as described in one of the old Osprey series books I own on military history.  It's also interesting to compare the above depiction to this one from the Goguryeo tombs:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ … _AD_4C.jpg

I know the actual Korean war bow differed a bit too from the typical Korean Gakgung used today which was standardized more recently.

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Re: Korean Archers and Mongol Invasions of Japan

And a final point I'll bring up regards the invading Mongol led force's bows: they appear to be relatively short (certainly compared to the Yumi) asymmetrical horn composites (presumably).  Sort of more like what you'd find among the Huns.

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Re: Korean Archers and Mongol Invasions of Japan

geoarcher wrote:

And a final point I'll bring up regards the invading Mongol led force's bows: they appear to be relatively short (certainly compared to the Yumi) asymmetrical horn composites (presumably).  Sort of more like what you'd find among the Huns.


That's right.  The Mongol Tsagaan Khad bow was asymmetric apparently.

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Re: Korean Archers and Mongol Invasions of Japan

Some really good information to add here form the following source:

http://gunbai-militaryhistory.blogspot. … -some.html

Mongol sources on the other hand  states that in the first invasion 15 000 men composed by Mongol, Jurchens and Han Chinese plus 8000 Korean soldiers, for a total of 23 000 men sailed for Japan.
However, given the nature of the operation and the presence of Han Chinese and Koreans, it would be wrong to think that the famous and skilled Mongolian horse archers made up the majority of the troops deployed in the war.
Nevertheless, the Mongol clearly states that they were outnumbered by their foes, so it is quite likely that only few thousand man reached Japan in 1274.
According to Japanese first hand account of the invasion, the mongol army that invaded Japan was made primarily by foot soldiers recruited in China and Korea, with Mongol horsemen acting as generals. Ironically, it is very likely that the Japanese army had much more horsemen than their mongolian counterpart.

Both Japanese and Mongol invasions seems to be exagerating the number of the Yuan forces, putting the entire armada at more than 100 000 men. While those numbers seems questionable, archeological findings of the second fleet clearly show that big war boats were deployed by the Yuan, which measure over 230 meters and thus could support such army. Still, the burden of such logistic feat would have been extreme even for the Yuan empire, so while it is very likely that the second invasion had more troops than the first one, it is hard to believe that they number more than 100 000 men.

On the other hand, other estimations for troop strenght exist as well in the literature.
For the first invasion, if we take into account additional korean sailors that might have partecipated in the fights as well, we could count an invading force of 27 000 - 30 000 men,while much more reliable account for the second invasion put the number of the two combined fleet at 70 000 men. Details of these troops, army and navy would be discussed in future article.

The main point of this section is to highlight that this wasn't the typical Mongolian army of the period. It wasn't made entirely by mounted warriors, which accounted for a very limited part of the troops, and the composition of different people inside the army, Han Chinese, Koreans, Jurchens and Mongol themselves made the comunication within the army extremely difficult.
In fact, it would be extremely flawed to call the entire operation a "Mongol Invasion" as the force was made by various people under the control of the Yuan empire.

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