Mongol Invasions of Japan (1274 and 1281): The Kamikaze

The Mongol invasions of Japan were two seaborne attacks launched by Kublai Khan, ruler of the Mongol Empire and the Yuan dynasty of China, against the island of Kyushu in November 1274 and the summer of 1281. Both failed. Japanese samurai fought hard on the beaches, and storms, especially a typhoon in August 1281, wrecked the invasion fleets. Remembered as the kamikaze, or “divine wind”, these storms became part of Japan’s national story.

Background: Kublai’s demands

By the 1260s Kublai ruled northern China and Korea, where the Goryeo kingdom had submitted after decades of Mongol invasions. Japan was governed in practice by the Kamakura shogunate, a military government in eastern Japan, while the emperor’s court in Kyoto had mostly ceremonial power.

From 1266 Kublai sent envoys, through Korea, carrying a letter addressed to the “king of Japan” that invited friendly relations and hinted at force if they were refused. The letter reached the regional headquarters at Dazaifu in Kyushu in 1268. The imperial court in Kyoto considered drafting a reply, but the shogunate, led from 1268 by the young regent Hōjō Tokimune, insisted on silence and sent the envoys home empty-handed. Further missions in the following years met the same response. Kublai was also at war with the Southern Song, which traded with Japan, and wanted to isolate it.

The first invasion, 1274

In late 1274 a fleet of about 900 ships, mostly built in Korea, sailed from the southern Korean coast. The army is usually estimated at 15,000 Mongol, Chinese and Jurchen troops and about 8,000 Korean soldiers, together with several thousand sailors. Modern estimates of the total range from about 23,000 to 40,000.

The invaders first overran the islands of Tsushima and Iki. On Tsushima the deputy governor Sō Sukekuni led a small force against the landing and was killed with his men, and on Iki the defender Taira no Kagetaka met the same fate. Many islanders were killed or taken captive. Around 19-20 November 1274 they landed at Hakata Bay in northern Kyushu. The samurai, who expected to fight as individuals and in small mounted groups, faced massed archers, disciplined infantry and gunpowder bombs that exploded with noise and smoke.

The defence was led by the Shōni and Ōtomo families, the leading warrior houses of northern Kyushu, and warriors hurried in from across the island. Fighting raged along the bay, at places such as Akasaka and Torikai-gata, and the Hakozaki Shrine was burned. A senior Yuan officer, Liu Fuheng, was wounded by an arrow during the fighting. The Japanese fell back to the old fortifications near Dazaifu. Yet the invaders did not press on. They returned to their ships, and on the voyage home many ships and men were lost. Korean records say that some 13,500 men did not return.

Why the invaders withdrew so quickly is debated. The traditional account says a storm forced them back to sea. Some historians, notably Thomas Conlan, argue that the attack was planned as a large raid, that a typhoon in late November would be unusual, and that Japanese resistance was more effective than the legend allows.

Preparations on both sides

Kublai sent more envoys in 1275. Tokimune had them beheaded at Tatsunokuchi near Kamakura, and a further embassy was executed at Hakata in 1279. The message was unmistakable.

The shogunate ordered warriors of Kyushu to take turns guarding the coast and, from 1276, built a stone wall about 2 metres high along roughly 20 kilometres of Hakata Bay. Parts of this wall, known as the Genkō Bōrui, can still be seen today. Temples and shrines across Japan were ordered to pray for the country’s protection. The court in Kyoto sent offerings to the great shrine of Ise, and Buddhist monks held rituals for the defeat of the foreign enemy. For many Japanese the war was as much a spiritual contest as a military one.

Meanwhile Kublai completed the conquest of the Song in 1279 (see Battle of Yamen). He now had the Song navy, shipyards and thousands of former Song soldiers at his disposal.

The second invasion, 1281

The second invasion was planned on a vast scale. An Eastern Route Army sailed from Korea with about 900 ships under the Mongol commander Hong Dagu and the Korean general Kim Bang-gyeong, with around 40,000 men by Yuan figures. A much larger Southern Route Army, recorded as 100,000 men in about 3,500 ships, sailed from southern China under the former Song general Fan Wenhu. Historians generally regard these figures as exaggerated, but the force was still enormous.

The eastern fleet reached Tsushima and Iki in June 1281 and arrived at Hakata Bay before the southern army. The stone wall prevented a landing on the mainland, so the invaders occupied Shika Island and other points offshore. Japanese warriors attacked the anchored ships at night in small boats, and fighting continued for weeks while disease spread in the crowded fleet. Warriors such as Kusano Tsunenaga and Kōno Michiari became famous for boarding and burning enemy ships, and Takezaki Suenaga’s scroll shows him climbing aboard a Mongol vessel.

The southern army arrived late, and in midsummer the two fleets gathered near Takashima island in Imari Bay, west of Hakata. Around 15-16 August 1281 (the last day of the seventh month in the Japanese calendar) a typhoon struck. Much of the fleet, many of its ships lashed together for defence, was destroyed. Thousands of soldiers drowned, and those stranded on Takashima and nearby shores were hunted down by Japanese forces in the following days. Total losses are uncertain because the size of the fleets is disputed, but they certainly ran into the tens of thousands, making this one of the worst naval disasters of the pre-modern world.

Key people

• Kublai Khan (1215-1294): Great Khan and Yuan emperor, who ordered both invasions.
• Hōjō Tokimune (1251-1284): regent of the Kamakura shogunate, who refused Kublai’s demands and organised the defence.
• Takezaki Suenaga (1246-after 1293): a Kyushu warrior who fought in both invasions and commissioned illustrated scrolls of his deeds.
• Hong Dagu: Yuan commander of Korean descent who led the eastern armies.
• Kim Bang-gyeong: Korean general who led Goryeo’s troops in both invasions.

Consequences

Kublai planned a third invasion, but wars in Vietnam and elsewhere took priority, and the plan was abandoned in 1286. After his death in 1294 his successors did not try again.

In Japan the victory brought pride but also strain. Kamakura’s warriors expected land as rewards, yet a defensive war produced no conquered territory to share. Coastal guard duty continued for decades, and many warriors fell into debt. Takezaki Suenaga’s scrolls, the Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba, were made partly to record his service in pursuit of reward. These tensions contributed to the fall of the Kamakura shogunate in 1333.

Underwater archaeology

Since the 1980s underwater archaeologists have searched the seabed off Takashima. They have recovered anchors, weapons, ceramic bombs and hull timbers, and in 2011 and 2015 they identified substantial remains of wrecked ships. The finds confirm the use of exploding bombs described in Japanese sources, and some researchers suggest that hastily built ships, including river craft, made the fleet especially vulnerable to the storm.

Myths and facts

• Myth: The storms alone saved Japan. Fact: The samurai fought effectively, and in 1281 the stone wall and night raids kept the invaders off the mainland for weeks before the typhoon.
• Myth: The kamikaze of 1274 is as certain as that of 1281. Fact: The 1281 typhoon is well attested, but the nature of the 1274 storm is disputed.

Legacy

The invasions seemed to fulfil earlier warnings. In 1260 the Buddhist preacher Nichiren had predicted in his treatise Risshō Ankoku Ron that Japan would suffer foreign invasion if it did not reform its religion, and his followers saw the Mongol attacks as proof.

The idea that the gods had protected Japan with a divine wind strengthened belief in Japan as a “land of the gods”. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the story was retold as a symbol of national unity and resistance, and paintings and school textbooks celebrated the samurai and the storm. In the Second World War the name kamikaze was given to the Japanese suicide air units, a deliberate echo of the 13th-century deliverance.

Timeline

• 1266: Kublai sends his first embassy to Japan through Korea.
• 1268: Hōjō Tokimune becomes regent; Kublai’s letter goes unanswered.
• 1274, November: The first invasion takes Tsushima and Iki and lands at Hakata Bay.
• 1275: Kublai’s envoys are executed at Tatsunokuchi.
• 1276: Construction of the stone wall along Hakata Bay begins.
• 1279: The Song dynasty falls; further envoys are executed at Hakata.
• 1281, June: The Eastern Route Army attacks Tsushima, Iki and Hakata Bay.
• 1281, August: A typhoon destroys much of the combined fleet near Takashima.
• 1286: Kublai abandons plans for a third invasion.

Why it matters

The Mongol invasions of Japan were the high-water mark of Mongol expansion by sea. Their failure kept Japan independent, shaped its later sense of divine protection and helped bring down the Kamakura shogunate, while the wrecks off Takashima remain one of the great underwater sites of medieval history.