Financing the Sixteenth-Century Korean War (1592-98): The Experiences of Japan and Korea and Ming China

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

This panel studies the fiscal aspect of the sixteen-century Korean War (1592-1598). It not only estimates how much revenue the three belligerents (Japan, Korea and Ming China) diverted to their war efforts, respectively, but also explores what these revenue were (not necessarily currencies) and how they were extracted and appropriated. Moreover, it discusses how the war transformed the ways with which the three belligerents financed themselves and governed their peoples. This panel is therefore not merely a number-crunching exercise. Instead, it investigates the interaction between state and society from the fiscal and financial perspective. Puk and Hasegawa deal with the Ming side of the problem. If Puk focuses on the revenue appropriation at the central level of the Ming government, thus the "dispatching" end of Ming's war finance, then Hasegawa studies the "receiving" end: how the Ming frontline commanders and quartermasters made do with limited logistics supply. Nakajima deals with the Japanese side of the problem. He relates Katou Kiyomasa's involvement in Luzon trade to Japan's need for saltpeter and other materials that were essential for the largely firearm-equipped Japanese army. Yamazaki deals with the Korean side of the problem. He studies how the Korean government struggled to muster resources to resist Japanese invasion on the one hand, and supported Ming expedition force on the other. This panel is at once an investigation of one of the long-neglected aspect of the War, and a discussion of institutional history, and also an attempt on cross-border and comparative study.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing-Diaspora

Session Organizer

• Wing-kin Puk, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Individual Presentations

• Financing the Korean War (1592-98) from Beijing: The Central Fiscal Operation - Wing-kin Puk, Chinese University of Hong Kong

• The Quartering of Ming Soldiers during the Korean War - Masato Hasegawa, New York University

• War and Trade, Katou Kiyomasa's Luzon Trade and Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Maritime Trade Policy during the Korea War - Yoshiaki Nakajima, Kyushu University

• Surviving the War: Korean War Finance during Japanese Invasion - Takeshi Yamazaki, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University