e fact that
the Korean government had interfered to prevent the free and kindly
intercourse between China and Japan. The cloth and velvet, however, were
at once recognized as European productions and not derived from Japan. So
the ambassadors were charged with deceit and at last confessed.

The Japanese army was reinforced, it is said, with 130,000 fresh troops.
Supplies, however, were difficult to obtain, and the movements were much
hindered. A small Chinese army of 5,000 men arrived at the end of the year
A.D. 1597 to aid the Koreans. An attack on the Japanese ships at Fusan was
made by the Korean navy, but it was without difficulty repelled and most
of the attacking ships destroyed. After some material advantages, which,
however, were not decisive, the Japanese troops were forced to return to
Fusan for the winter. The principal engagement was at Yoel-san, a strong
position, accessible both by sea and land. It was garrisoned by troops of
Kato's division, who were brave and determined. The army composed of
Chinese and Koreans, under the Chinese commander-in-chief Hsing-chieh,
laid siege to this fortress, and succeeded in cutting off all its
communications. But Kuroda and Hachisuka came to Kato's assistance, and
compelled the Chinese general to raise the siege and retreat to Soeul, the
Korean capital. It was in one of the battles fought during the summer of
A.D. 1598, that 38,700 heads of Chinese and Korean soldiers are said to
have been taken. The heads were buried in a mound after the ears and noses
had been cut off. These grewsome relics of savage warfare were pickled in
tubs and sent home to Kyoto, where they were deposited in a mound in the
grounds of the temple of Daibutsu, and over them a monument erected which
is marked _mimi-zuka_ or ear-mound. There the mound and monument can be
seen to this day.(185)

The death of Taiko Sama occurred on the day equivalent to the 18th of
September, A.D. 1598, and on his death-bed he seems to have been troubled
with the thought of the veteran warriors who were uselessly wearing out
their lives in Korea. In his last moments he opened his eyes and exclaimed
earnestly: "Let not the spirits of the hundred thousand troops I have sent
to Korea become disembodied in a foreign land."(186) Ieyasu, on whom
devolved the military responsibility after the Taiko's death, and who had
never sympathized with his wishes and aims regarding Korea, did not delay
the complete withdrawal of the troop