Japan and the Japanese

18 JAPAN. A. D. 12811283.
encountered a violent tempest, by which most of the vessels were
driven on shore. The officers, selecting those least damaged, them-
selves returned, leaving behind them in that island more than a
hundred thousand men. The soldiers, finding themselves thus aban-
doned, chose a leader, and set themselves to work to cut down trees
to build new vessels, in which to escape. Hut the Japanese, apprised
of their shipwreck, made a descent upon the island with a
powerful anny, and put them to the sword. They spared only ten
or twelve thousand Chinese soldiers, of whom they made slaves ;
and, of the whole formidable invading army, hardly three persona
returned to China."
Father Gaubil, in his Histoire de la Dynastic dcs Nonyoux,
compiled also from Chinese sources, states the number of Chinese
and Corean prisoners at eighty thousand, and of the Mongols who
were slain at thirty thousand.
Kiimpfer, in his elaborate work on Japan, gives the following
as from the Japanese chronicles, jSipon Odtriki, and Xijxin Okailzu :
"Gonda succeeded his father in the year ot Syn-mu ]!K>.">, of
Christ 127")."
"
In the ninth year of his
reign, the Tartar general,
Mooko, appeared on the coasts of Japan, with a fleet of four
thousand sail, and two hundred and forty thousand men. The
then reigning Tartarian emperor, Lifsu [Kublai Khan], after he had
conquered the empire of China, sent this general to subdue also the
empire of Japan. But this expedition proved unsuccessful. The
Kami, that is, the gods of the country, and protectors of the Japanese
empire, were so incensed at the insult offered them by the
Tartars, that, on the first day of the seventh month, they excited a
violent and dreadful storm, which destroyed all this reputed invin-
cible armada. Mooko himself perished in the waves, and but few
of his men escaped."
Siebold, in his recently published Archives r,f Japan, gives the
following as the account of this invasion contained in the esteemed
Japanese chronicle, Niponki:* "So soon as Kublai Khan had
ascended the Mogul throne, he turned his eyes upon distant Japan.
This nation, like Kaoii-le (one of the kingdoms of Corca), must
* As this chronicle, which \* the oldest Japanese history, is state. 720, it must lx> from a continuation of it that
BieboUl, or rather his assistant, Hoffman, translates.