Mongol Invasion of Japan Failed
In 1281, the Mongol-ruled Yuan dynasty launched the largest seaborne invasion the world had yet seen, aiming at Japan, and failed. After weeks of fighting around Hakata Bay in northern Kyushu, a powerful typhoon struck the crowded fleets and destroyed much of the invading force. The Japanese later called such storms kamikaze, or "divine wind," and the idea of a protected homeland would echo through Japanese history for centuries.
The invasion grew out of Kublai Khan's ambitions. Having founded the Yuan dynasty in China and conquered Korea's Goryeo kingdom, he sought to bring Japan into his tributary system. His envoys carried demands for submission to the Kamakura shogunate, which ruled in the name of the emperor, and the shogunate's regent, Hōjō Tokimune, refused to comply. A first invasion in 1274 landed at Hakata Bay with a combined Mongol, Chinese, and Korean force. It fought well against Japanese samurai, who were unused to Mongol tactics and weapons, but withdrew after a day or so of battle, and some of its ships were lost in bad weather on the return.
Expecting another attempt, the shogunate ordered a long defensive wall built along the shore at Hakata, and warriors from across western Japan were mobilized to guard it. When Kublai tried again in 1281, he sent two forces: an eastern fleet from Korea and a much larger southern fleet from southern China. Sources give very large troop numbers, but historians treat the figures with caution, and estimates vary widely. The forces were meant to join up, but the timing went wrong. The eastern fleet arrived first, and Japanese defenders, using the wall and small boats for raids on the anchored ships, kept the invaders from establishing a secure position.
After the southern fleet arrived, the armada remained crowded near the coast and islands, vulnerable to the weather. A typhoon in the late summer wrecked a large part of it, and the surviving troops were either killed, captured, or left stranded. Scholars debate how decisive the storm was compared with the stubborn defense and the invaders' logistical problems, but most agree that the combination turned a difficult campaign into a disaster. Archaeologists have found wrecks and artifacts off the coast of Kyushu that offer physical evidence of the fleet's fate.
The consequences were significant on both sides. Kublai planned further expeditions, but they were never carried out, partly because of costs and other conflicts. In Japan, the victory strained the Kamakura shogunate, which had no conquered land to give as rewards, leaving many warriors dissatisfied with their compensation. This discontent contributed to the regime's fall in 1333. Meanwhile, the belief in divine protection grew into a lasting cultural motif, and the word kamikaze was later revived in the twentieth century for very different purposes.