Yeonggyu (, d. 1592) was a Korean Buddhist monk and militia leader who fought in the

Imjin War The Imjin War () was a series of two Japanese invasions of Korea: an initial invasion in 1592 also individually called the "Imjin War", a brief truce in 1596, and a second invasion in 1597 called the Chŏngyu War (). The conflict ended in 159 ...

. He was killed in the third battle of Geumsan in 1592.

Life

Yeonggyu was an abbot who headed a Buddhist temple in

Chungcheong Chungcheong Province (; ) was one of the eight provinces of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. Chungcheong was located in the southwest of Korea. The provincial capital was located at Gongju, which had been the capital of the kingdom of Baekje ...

province. In 1592, he received an appeal from Seosan Daesa, his former teacher, calling on him to resist the invasion force of Japanese regent

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period, Sengoku and Azuchi-Momoyama periods and regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: ...

, which had landed at

Busan Busan (), officially Busan Metropolitan City, is South Korea's second list of cities in South Korea by population, most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.3 million as of 2024. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economi ...

. Yeonggyu recruited monks into a militia to resist the invasion. His force joined with a

righteous army Righteous armies (), sometimes translated as irregular armies or militias, were informal civilian militias that appeared several times in Korean history, when the national armies were in need of assistance. The first righteous armies emerged d ...

led by

Cho Hŏn Cho Hŏn (, 1544 – 1592) was a Joseon dynasty, Joseon official and militia leader in Korea at the time of the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98), Imjin war. He believed that Japan under Toyotomi Hideyoshi posed a threat to Korean securit ...

. Together, they took the fortress of

Cheongju Cheongju (; ) is the capital and largest list of cities in South Korea, city of North Chungcheong Province in South Korea. The 'Cheong' in the name of Chungcheong Province is the Cheong of Cheongju. History Cheongju has been an important prov ...

from the Japanese. Cho and Yeonggyu planned to recapture the capital from the Japanese, but their officers instead argued they should attack Geumsan, a town the Japanese commander

Ankokuji Ekei was a military monk and descendant of the Takeda clan of Aki province. He served the Mōri clan and later the Toyotomi clan. Biography Although it is certain that he was from the Aki Takeda clan, there are various theories about his birth yea ...

was planning to turn into a fortress. The two leaders assented and moved to liberate Geumsan. Cho Hŏn's forces attacked on 22 September, but all were killed, including their leader. Yeonggyu's forces attacked in the days after. He too was killed, and the battle ended in a Korean defeat.

Legacy

Yeonggyu's monk fighters and Cho Hŏn's volunteers are commemorated by a shrine on the site of the battles of Geumsan. Yeonggyu was posthumously awarded with the post of ''T'ongchong Taebu'' by the Korean court.

Notes

References

* * {{cite book , first=Nukii , last=Masayuki , chapter=Righteous Army Activity in the Imjim War , pages=141–163 , title=The East Asian War, 1592–1598: International Relations, Violence and Memory , editor-last=Lewis , editor-first=James B. , publisher=

Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, Routledge, F1000 Research and Dovepress. It is a division of I ...

, date=January 2, 2015 , isbn=978-1138786639 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sVu2BQAAQBAJ People of the Imjin War 1592 deaths Joseon Buddhist monks