Nan-on castle was of rectangular form, enclosing a space nearly two miles square, as each side was nine thousand feet long. Its walls, which were twelve feet high, were built of great stones, laid together without cement. Though no mortar had been used on wall or tower, shell-lime had been laid over the outside, in which glistened innumerable fragments of nacre and the enamel of shells, giving the structure the appearance of glittering porcelain. At the angles, and at intervals along the flanks, were towers, two or three stories high. The four ponderous gates were of stone, fourteen feet high. The preparations for defence were all that Chinese science could suggest. In the dry ditch, three hundred feet wide, was an abatis of tree-trunks, with their branches outward, behind which were iron-plated wagons, to be filled with archers and spearmen. From the towers, fire-missiles and shot from firearms were in readiness. The weak points, at which no enemy was expected, and for which preparations for defence were few, were on the east and west No effect being produced during the first two days, either by bullets or fire-arrows, Konishi, on the third, sent large detachments of men into the rice-fields, then covered with a promising harvest of growing rice, which the farmers, in the hope of peace, had sown. Reaping the green, juicy stalks, the hundreds of soldiers gathered an enormous quantity of sheaves and waited, with these and their stacks of bamboo poles and ladders, until night. In the thick darkness, and in perfect silence, they moved to a part of the wall which, being over twenty feet high, was but slightly guarded, and began to build a platform of the sheaves. Four Japanese, reaching the top by climbing, raised the war-cry, and one of the towers being set on fire by their arrows, the work was discovered. Yet the matchlock men kept the walls swept by their bullets, while the work of piling fresh sheaves and bundles of bamboo went on. The greenness of the rice-stalks made the mass both firm and fire-proof. At last the mound was so high that it overtopped the wall. The men now climbed over the ramparts by the hundreds, and the swordsmen, leaping into the castle, began the fight at hand to hand. Most of the Chinese fought with the courage of despair, while others, in their panic, opened the gates to escape, by which more of the besiegers entered. The garrison, smitten in front and rear, were driven to the final wall by Konishi’s troops. On the other side a body of picked men, from Kato’s army, joined in the slaughter. They had entered the castle at the rear, by scaling a rugged mountain path known only to the Corean prisoners, whose treachery they had purchased by the promise of their lives. Between the two attacking forces the Coreans and Chinese, who could not escape, were slain by thousands.