In February 1597, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered a second full-scale invasion of Korea after peace negotiations with Ming China collapsed. Japanese forces, having previously withdrawn to the southern coast following setbacks including Admiral Yi Sun-sin's naval victories, renewed their offensive, plunging the Korean peninsula back into a war that devastated the countryside and reshaped East Asian geopolitics.
The first invasion, launched in 1592, had seen Japanese forces sweep rapidly through Korea before Ming Chinese reinforcements and the extraordinary naval campaigns of Admiral Yi Sun-sin — whose innovative 'turtle ships' devastated Japanese fleets — forced a stalemate and years of inconclusive negotiations.
When talks between Japan and Ming China broke down over Hideyoshi's outsized demands, including a Ming princess as consort for the Japanese emperor and control of Korean provinces, he ordered a second invasion in early 1597. Japanese forces landed once more on the Korean coast, this time facing a Korean navy temporarily weakened after Yi Sun-sin's political enemies had orchestrated his removal from command.
The campaign proved less successful than the first. Yi Sun-sin was eventually reinstated and delivered another crushing naval victory at Myeongnyang, while Chinese intervention again blunted Japanese advances on land. Hideyoshi's death in 1598 finally ended the war, as Japanese forces withdrew entirely, leaving Korea devastated but independent, and setting the stage for centuries of complex Japan-Korea-China relations.