Ming Enters the War

Also called: Ming relief army

Ming sent troops at Joseon’s request. Zu Chengxun’s first force was beaten at Pyongyang in July; while Shen Weijing bought time, Li Rusong crossed the Yalu with over 40,000 men in December.

From Uiju, Seonjo sent envoy after envoy asking for help. Ming set aside suspicions that Joseon was guiding the Japanese and resolved to stop the war in Korea before it reached Liaodong. Zu Chengxun came from Liaodong with a few thousand men in the seventh month, attacked Pyongyang in haste on a rainy night on the 17th, and was badly beaten.

Ming sent Shen Weijing to agree a fifty-day truce with Konishi while it raised an army. On the 25th of the twelfth month Admiral Li Rusong crossed the Yalu with over 40,000 men, and in the first month of 1593 retook Pyongyang with the Korean army. Ming troops stayed until the end of the war, which became an international war of the three East Asian states.