How did typhoons help stop the Mongol invasions of Japan?
Japan called it the "divine wind", but a stone wall and night raiders had already pinned the Mongol fleet down before the storm struck.
โถ Start the storyTyphoons helped by destroying the Mongol fleets, above all in August 1281, when a great storm, called , struck the invasion ships and devastated them. The Japanese took the name "divine wind" from this, and it was first used for the typhoons that wrecked the Mongol fleets in the 13th century. But the storm was the last act, not the whole play.
Kublai Khan sent missions between 1266 and 1273 demanding Japan's , and the Japanese ignored them. In 1274 his fleet landed at Hakata Bay. The Japanese were not used to the Mongol way of fighting. Mongol troops advanced in a dense body behind shields and threw bombs that frightened the Japanese horses. One account says that when a Japanese commander's grandson shot an arrow to open the battle in the traditional way, the Mongols burst out laughing. Yet that invasion ended without a clear Japanese victory. The Yuan generals argued over pushing on at night, worried about exhausted troops and an ambush, and went back to their ships. Many ships were then lost in a storm, though it is not certain where it hit.
Japanese warriors in 1274
- Called out a named enemy for single combat
- Opened battle with a ceremonial arrow
Yuan troops in 1274
- Advanced in a dense body behind shields
- Threw bombs that frightened horses
Then the Japanese got ready. After 1274 the shogunate organized the samurai of Kyushu and built defences, including a two-metre-high wall at Hakata Bay in 1276. In 1281, Mongol ships that came ashore could not get past that wall and were driven off by volleys of arrows. The fleet was stuck offshore, and Japanese raiders attacked it at night in small boats. Only after this did the of 15 August hit the anchored ships.
So the finished the invasion, but the wall and the raiders kept the Mongols pinned in the water where a storm could find them.
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Recap
Typhoons finished the Mongol fleets, but a stone wall, night raids and a stalemate had pinned them in place first.
๐ก A trick to remember it ยท The wind finished the job, but the wall held the door shut until the wind arrived.
Surprising fact ยท The Mongol bombs and mass tactics baffled the Japanese in 1274, and a laugh at a ceremonial arrow shows how different the two ways of fighting were.
Sources (1)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (17 claims) cites at least one of these.