Questions about the Mongol invasions of Japan

by NotTheAndesMountains

  1. It's common to find the reason behind the failed invasions being typhoon destruction of Mongol fleets. Is this an accurate primary reason? Regardless, how successful was Japan in putting up a solid defense prior to the typhoon? Is there any indication they would have been able to fully repel the Mongol invasion without it?

  2. What is the farthest geographical location that soldiers in the Mongol army could have been from while invading Japan? Do we have any contemporary sources describing what they did/saw, and how it may have affected them? What were the rough proportions of ethnic groups during the invasion?

  3. Did the failure of the Mongols to successfully invade and take over invigorate rebellious efforts elsewhere in the Mongol efforts, or were reports of the failure largely unknown in the far off lands under Mongol control?

ParallelPain
  1. See here and here
  2. Sources differ greatly about the makeup of the invasion forces. But for your question we're only told (ethnicity-wise) of Korean, Chinese, Mongol, and Jurchen.
    For the 1274 invasion, the History of Goryeo's account of the Korean commander report 8,000 Korean troops, 6,700 Korean sailors, along with 25,000 Mongol and Chinese troops. A Jurchen contingent may or may not have been counted among the 25,000. However in the chronology of the Korean kings, the Korean forces are variously reported as 5,000 + 458 and 5,300. The same chronology likewise report 4,500 under the Mongol commander and 500 under one of the Chinese commander. The chronology also mention an invasion force of 15,000. History of the Yuan report the Korean contingent as 5,600 so over 5,000 for the Korean contingent is probably (more) correct. In the History of the Yuan's biography of the commanders, the invasion force is variously reported as 40,000 or 20,000, but in the chronology of the emperors reported as 15,000 total, and this is repeated in the history's account on Japan. There's clearly different traditions, but as the lower estimate is in general the more likely, the 1274 invasion was likely only a total of 15,000 men (on 900 ships). If that includes sailors, the actual fighting men would be under 10,000. IIRC Thomas Conlan estimate only a few thousand on each side.
    For the 1281 invasion, the History of Goryeo reports 40,000 from Korea and 100,000 from China. While this matches what's recorded in what's in the History of the Yuan's biography of the one of the Chinese commanders I agree with Conlan that this is impossible, and the account of the 1274 invasion already suggest the biographies are prone to exaggeration. The history's account of Japan seem to suggest an overall mobilization of 100,000. Personally even that's hard to take in. In the detail all we're told in the chronology is that the King of Korea reported willing to send 30,000 men for the invasion, which was later reported as 10,000 soldiers and 15,000 sailors (shows you how the rounding works in such reports). This matches what's in the History of Goryeo, which variously reported 10,000 soldiers and 15,000 sailors or 9,960 soldiers and 17,029 sailors for the invasion force (in total 19,397 made it back to Korea btw). This means the Korean involvement is between 2530,000. The only (not 100,000+) number mentioned in the emperor's chronology in the History of Yuan is that the Chinese commander asked for and was given 10,000 men for the task (he also asked for 2,000 horse but was denied). Korean sources mention Mongol and Chinese commanders in the force that set out for Korea, but whether their contingents were included in the 2530,000 is unknown. It's also not known whether the 10,000 mentioned for the force setting out from China was just a part or the total (in my opinion the passage suggest total), and whether or not it included sailors (comparing the words used when reporting the Korean King's plan I would say it does). Including only what's reported makes the combined 1281 invasion force a much more doable 35~40,000. Even that's already over twice the size of the 1274 invasion.