[KS] Portuguese during Hideyoshi invasion?

[Frank Hoffmann]

>I wonder if any of you could confirm me the 
>supposed participation of Portuguese mercenaries 
>or soldiers fighting the Japanese at the end of 
>Hideyoshi invasion along with Chinese and Korean 
>troops.

Indeed, this seems very unlikely and is probably 
based on the wrong reading of a text composed in 
some archaic Portuguese -- a letter by Gaspar 
Vilela from 1571. But Vilela never visited Korea, 
and no other Portuguese did at the time. If at 
all, it were the Spanish Jesuits that were in 
Korea at that time, and they were there with the 
Japanese, not the Chinese. One of the three 
generals that let the Japanese invasion army was 
the daimyô Konishi Yunkinaga, and he brought de 
Céspedes to Korea to care for the souls of his 
15,000 Christian Japanese soldiers. See my 2002 
posting about the same topic here:
http://koreaweb.ws/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreaweb.ws/2002-January/003055.html
Many works do refer to de Céspedes erroneously as Portuguese national.
For the date you mention, May 1597, I can't find 
any hint of any mention of Portuguese either -- 
at least not in Chinese sources. And none of the 
missionary and (Korean) Church histories do 
mention this.

Frank


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Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws