The two attempts by Khubilai Khan, the Mongol Emperor of China, to
invade Japan in 1274 and 1281 represent unique events in the history of
both countries. It pitted the samurai of Japan against the fierce
warriors of the steppes who had conquered half the known world.
The Mongol conquest of Korea left them with a considerable quantity of
maritime resources, which enabled them to thin seriously for the first
time about crossing the Tsushima strait between Korea and Japan with an
army of invasion. The first invasion, which began with savage raiding on
the islands of Tsushima and Iki, made a landfall at Hakata Bay and
forced the samurai defenders back inland. Luckily for the Japanese
defenders, a storm scattered the Mongol invasion fleet, leading them to
abandon this attempt.
In the intervening years the Japanese made defensive preparation, and
the Mongol increased their fleet and army, so that the second invasion
involved one of the largest seaborne expeditions in world history up to
that time. This attempt was aimed at the same landing site, Hakata Bay,
and met stiffer opposition form the new defences and the aggressive
Japanese defenders. Forced buy a series of major Japanese raids to stay
in their ships at anchor, the Mongol fleet was obliterated by a
typhoon - the kami kaze (divine wind) - for the loss of as many as 90
per cent of the invaders. Although further preparations were made for an
assault by the Mongols at the end of the 13ht and beginning of the 14th
centuries, this proved to be the last realistic threat of an invasion of
the home islands till 1945.
