임진왜란 초기 방어실태와 성주(星州) 전투

Abstract

As Chosun was a country founded with the military coup caused by Wihwado(威化島) Retreat as a chance, the kings of the country throughout the history were quite sensitive about the employment of the military. Particularly, Taejong(太宗) regarded military power as the source of authority and abolished the private miliary system but established the public one in order to make the king’s monopoly of the military power firmly, and he also abolished the private relations between the general and soldiers. Later, Chosun government divided the military organization into peace and war footings and did not allow the commander of the peace footing to lead the military that he had selected and trained himself during the war and allowed the commander appointed additionally by the center to command the military. Concerning the defense system at the initial period of Imjin-war, Jeolla-do(全羅道) and Gyeongsangwu-do(慶尙右道) dealt with it quite differently. Jeolla coped with the wartime situations while maintaining the peace footing. Originally, the commander of the peace footing was not allowed to lead the military under his command during the war. In the urgent situation, however, as the government did not send the commander of the war footing, Jeolla’s governor, the commander of the peace footing, did command and control the troops and soldiers. In Gyeongsangwu-do, however, as both peace and war footings collapsed at the early period of Imjinwaeran, sajok(士族) from all different places became the forces leader and collected the scattered soldiers to go out to drive away the Japanese invaders. Yet, that forces organization was similar to that of the war footing. About the Seongju(星州) Combat, it has been known that it took place three times, but according to 『Nanjungjaprok(亂中雜錄)』, those three times were not all. To recover Seongju Seong(星州城), either large or small combats had developed up to 18 times. In the meantime, a lot of righteous armies were sacrificed. The righteous armies’ activity was even more noticeable in Gyeongsangwu-do than in Jeolla-do. As one of the reasons for that, we can point out the fact that peace and war footings both collapsed in Gyeongsang and also solidarity among sajok(士族) and their control over the people were stronger there than in Jeolla.