In any case, this book provides a wealth of insight into the key players, tactics, motivations, and circumstances of the Imjin War. (most historians agree that the Chrysanthemum Throne was founded in the 5th century AD) Again, though, unless one is really a purist, it is perhaps more logical to conclude that the founding of the Empire may have been pushed to this date to fit with the calendar. The year 660 was apparently at the end of one of the 60-year cycles, and also the date of some sort of larger meta-cycle in the system. On a side note, I should mention that purists also use this same calendar to come up with the supposed date of the founding of the Japanese monarchy in 660 B.C by the mythical Emperor Jimmu. In this system, there is a cycle of sixty years, and "each increment in the cycle was given a name consisting of one of ten "heavenly stems" derived from the elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, and an "earthly branch of one of the twelve zodiacal symbols: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig." (Hawley 133) The year 1592 happened to be the year of the water dragon, or in Korean, "imjin." I was originally going to do a quick report on Ozawa Ichiro's Blueprint for a New Japan, but then I got bored and migrated to Netflix just finished this one yesterday and was so impressed that I decided to do a write-up while the material is still fairly fresh in my head.Īs the title implies, Hawley's novel explores, in incredible detail, the background and events of the 1592-1598 "Imjin" War between Japan, Korea, and Ming Dynasty China (Okay, sue me, it wasn't called China then, sheesh.) Where does the name Imjin come from? Turns out, it is simply the name of the year that the war started in, 1592, according to an ancient sexagenary calendar system from China. READ THIS BOOK! I haven't been as captivated by a historical novel since Sterling Seagrave's The Soong Dynasty.
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