The Samurai Invasion of Korea 1592–98

The invasions of Korea launched by the dictator Toyotomi Hideyoshi are unique in Japanese history for being the only time that the samurai assaulted a foreign country. Hideyoshi planned to invade and conquer China, ruled at the time by the Ming dynasty, and when the Korean court refused to allow his troops to cross their country, Korea became the first step in this ambitious plan of conquest. Though ultimately ending in failure and retreat, the Japanese armies initially drove the Koreans all the way to China before the decisive victories of Admiral Yi Sunsin and the Korean navy disrupted the Japanese supply routes whilst Chinese armies harried them by land. This book describes the region's first 'world war' that caused a degree of devastation in Korea itself that was unmatched until the Korean War of the 1950s. Book jacket.

Stephen Turnbull is recognized as one of the world's foremost military historians of the medieval and early modern periods. He first rose to prominence as a result of his 1977 book, The Samurai: A Military History. Since then he has achieved an equal fame in writing about European military subjects and has had 30 books published. He has always tried to concentrate on the less familiar areas of military history, in particular such topics as Korea, Eastern Europe, the Baltic states and the Teutonic Knights. The author lives in Leeds, UK.

Peter Dennis was born in 1950. Inspired by contemporary magazines such as Look and Learn he studied illustration at Liverpool Art College. Peter has since contributed to hundreds of books, predominantly on historical subjects.The illustrator lives in Nottinghamshire, UK.