Chapter 1 Summary: In 1582, Nobunaga thwarted an attempted assassination attempt. In the following campaigns, he effectively unified Japan by 1589. With Japan unified, Nobunaga turned to inward reforms, such as promotion of Europeanization, as well as external expansion at the expense of China. This external expansion resulted in the declaration of war against Korea in 1591.
Chapter 2 Summary: In 1592 Japan launched its invasion of Korea. The invasion went well overall, capturing the capital of Hanseong and advancing up to the Imjin River. Korean advantages at sea, which were causing Japanese supply problems, were neutralized by the capture of Jeolla Province, where the Korean navy was based. These Japanese successes prompted the Ming to intervene on behalf of Korea at the end of 1542.
Chapter 3 Summary: 1593 saw the arrival of Ming relief forces. At first, both sides underestimated each other, leading to several bloody defeats of both sides. Eventually Nobunaga began seeking a diplomatic solution to the war. His general Hideyoshi, wishing to negotiate from a position of strength conceived of a plan that lead to the capture of the Korean King Seonjo.
Chapter 4 Summary: The capture of King Seonjo caused Korea to fall into a political crisis, which ended with the Western faction seizing control. Thanks to a massive Ming presence, the Japanese were forced to retreat from their Imjin River fortifications, though a massive naval engagement allowed the Japanese to hold on to the important Jeolla Province.
Chapter 5:
Will a New Day Dawn?
Based on the orders Hideyoshi received from Nobunaga to retreat, the Japanese started to slowly withdraw. From a high of 150,000 men, the numbers slowly dwindled, until only 75,000 men remained. Corresponding with this withdraw was a retreat from previously held defensive positions, the Ming-Korean force following behind. After close to three years of Japanese occupation, the Ming-Korean force liberated the capital Hanseong, and still the Japanese retreated. The Pass of Chungju became the site of another battle as the Japanese rear-guard made a stand where the Ming-Korean numbers would be less effective. The Second Battle of Chungju Pass left the Chinese in control of the battlefield, allowing them access to southern Korea.
While the Japanese were forced to retreat, they did inflict several notable defeats on their enemies. Nabeshima Naoshige defeated a 40,000 strong Korean militia army with 6,000 Japanese soldiers during a night ambush. Meanwhile, Kato Kiyomasa, besieged at Yeongju, continued to hold out against a 60,000 combined Ming-Korean force with 7,000 men. These expensive defeats, combined with the general withdraw of Japanese forces from Korea, convinced the Ming General Li Rusong that a cautious advance was the best course. By the summer of 1595, the front had again stabilized, with almost no notable battles and the Japanese holding on to a string of cities on the southern coast, ranging from Pohang in the north to Yeosu in the south. For all intents and purposes, the war had ended, with both sides unwilling to commit the troops needed to break the stalemate.
The reason the Ming did not wish to commit troops wasnt because of they were overstretched, nor because they lacked the resources, but because they lacked the will. The Wanli Emperor, who at first vigorously promoted the war in response to what he saw as Japanese hubris, had by this time become ambivalent about the war. Instead, his attention was consumed by his conflicts with his advisors and with non-state diversions. Without Wanlis support, the Ming army in Korea lacked both oversight and support. Supplies meant for the army were diverted for the profit of local corrupt officials. Meanwhile, with the stabilization of the military front, the Ming general, Li Rusong, began to increasingly interfere in Korean domestic affairs, becoming more concerned with politics then driving the Japanese into the sea.
Japan also had reasons not to commit more troops. Most of the unorganized Korean militia guerillas which plagued Japanese attempts at occupying Korea were led by, or heavily reinforced by, local Buddhist monks. Throughout the war, Christian daimyo and Nobunagas Jesuit connections tried to convince Nobunaga that Buddhist monks in Japan itself were also a threat and were in contact with their Korean counterparts. Besides, they argued, Nobunaga himself had been forced to fight Japanese Buddhist monks, specifically the Buddhist warrior monks, or sohei, several times during his efforts to unify Japan, showing that as a group these monks could not be trusted.
While these efforts to drive a wedge between Nobunaga and Buddhist monks failed to move Nobunaga, the situation around the capital became volatile, with often contradictory rumors swirling around. On May 4, 1595, a detachment of Japanese soldiers returning from Korea began preparing for a ceremonial parade in the capital. Rumors, however, stated that their true intent at the capital was to crack down on Buddhist temples in the area. Responding to these rumors, several nearby sohei sects put aside their differences to unite in an attempted coup.
Unsurprisingly, the coup attempt was plagued by poor planning and sectarian actions, and so failed spectacularly. Nobunaga used this coup attempt as an excuse to exterminate the sohei once and for all, and so the returning veterans from the Korean War were put to work in hunting down the last of the sohei. So things might have ended were it not for some Christian daimyo. These Christian daimyo saw the sohei purge as an excuse needed to expand their own domains at the expense of their Buddhist neighbors. The first, and most significant of these mini-religious wars was Korean vetern Konishi Yukinagas attack against the lands of his neighbor and military rival Katō Kiyomasa, who was still in Korea. Claiming the presence of ikko-ikki in Kiyomasas domain, Konishi invaded Katōs domain, destroying all Buddhist temples in the realm before withdrawing under political pressure from Nobunaga. The damage had already been done, however, as schisms between Christian and Buddhist, the new samurai class and the old guard, the progressives and the liberals, had only widened in Japan.
By far, however, it was Korea who suffered the most from the war. Politically, Japan still had the old Korean king, King Seonjo, in their captivity. As the war reached a stalemate, they even established a court-in-exile for the king in Japan, from which decrees were issued against the rebellious Korean court headed by the traitorous Prince Imhae. A second threat against the established Korean court was Prince Gwanghae, the former Crown Prince, who had been stripped of his title by the currently ruling Korean faction and who had fled north, finding refuge with the Manchu.
Internally, the ruling Western faction, controlling their puppet Crown Prince, Imhae, ruled the country under the dual pillars of a pro-Ming and pro-conservative agenda. Immediately following their ascension into power, the Western faction had engaged in purges against their rivals, the Eastern faction members who had escaped capture by the Japanese. These purges however, proved to only temporarily ensure their political dominance. The Western factions complete subservience to the Ming army which propped them up proved as distasteful to the ultra-nationalistic Korean militia and guerilla groups as King Seonjos complete subservience to his Japanese captors. As the militia groups comprised the bulk of Korean military forces, this proved to hamper military cooperation with the Ming forces.
Korea also found reintegrating its lands south of the Imjin River to be a more difficult task than they had first expected. During their occupation, the Japanese had completely remodeled these territories in order to begin integrating them into Japan proper. When Japan retreated, they either took or destroyed civil records and the bureaucratic system, as well as destroying valuable farmland and supplies. While at first Korean peasantry welcomed their liberators, the presence of Ming troops quickly caused problems. Attempts at punishing collaborators with the Japanese began turning the populous against the Ming, as the army proved uncritical in its acceptance of intelligence, turning it into a tool of personal rather than political revenge. This distaste only grew as Ming forces continued their liberation of southern Korea. Ming looting in the area was about on par with previous Japanese looting, making the common peasant see no difference between the liberators and those from which he was liberated.
Not only did the Western faction lose support because of their dependence upon the Ming, but they also lost support because of their policies. Right behind the Ming army marched a Korean army, an army made up of bureaucrats and tax collectors. With their farmlands ravaged, trade disrupted, families displaced, and a large percentage of the workforce either fighting or already casualties of the war, the local communities could not afford the tax burden immediately placed upon them by the government. To make matters worse, what taxes that were collected usually went to corrupt officials in the army and court.
Still, one could argue as 1595 ended, at least there was peace.
A peaceful, calm pond
Concealing rushing waters
Peaceful no longer
-Anon., A.D. 1596
In addition, there is a Paradox AAR, 
