By this time the people of Japan had acquired full knowledge of the
immense power wielded by Kublai Khan and of the vast conquests achieved
by him in succession to his grandfather Genghis. Hence there was no
little anxiety as to the outcome of these futile embassies. The emperor
ordered prayers to be offered up as before at the shrines and temples
throughout the empire. Kublai had now brought almost the whole of China
into subjection and established his dynasty of Yuan. He continued to
send embassy after embassy to Japan, and Japan on her side continued,
with equal persistence, to make no reply to messages which she construed
as national insults. Enraged by this indifference, the khan finally sent
against Japan a fleet of a hundred and fifty war vessels under the
command of Liu Fok-hêng, at the same time ordering Korea to reinforce
this expedition. The invaders arrived at Tsushima toward the end of
1274, where they killed the governor. Thence they passed to the island
of Iki and killed its acting high constable, and thereafter directed
their forces against Imatsu in Chikuzen. The military nobles of
Kiushū--Shōni, Ōtomo, Matsuura, Kikuchi and others--collected troops and
made a stand at Hakozaki. The Yuan invaders, armed with guns, caused
great havoc among the Japanese army, but the Chinese leader, Liu,
received a wound that compelled him to retire, and a heavy gale arising
destroyed numbers of the foreign war-vessels. The Korean general's ship
was wrecked and he himself drowned. Finally, the remnant of the invading
force escaped under cover of darkness. Once again after a few months
the Yuan sovereign sent another envoy, but he was sent up to Kamakura
and there put to death by Hōjō Tokimune.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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