Kublai Khan was an adventurous ruler in his time ruling over the Mongol Empire and eventually his portion after its split. He sought for power for a massive empire spanning most of Asia, and he was never satisfied with it. Kahn’s consistent push for more land or vassal’s to add to his empire led to his overstretch of both his military but also the resources of his empire. He build massive invasion forces that largely failed leading to some hard to answer questions about his empire and what truly happened to some of his army. James P. Delgado uses a large collections of sources in his book Kublai Khan’s Lost Fleet to try and answer three main questions, what happened to Khan’s fleet in Japan, how his fleet was defeated, and why Khan wanted to expand his empire? Khan’s fleets that sailed to Japan sailed to Japan to try and take it to control all of the maritime trade that happened in the pacific off the coast of modern day China. Kahn sailed with the second largest land force in history with a massive set of ships and soldiers from present day Mongolia, China, and the Koreas. He sailed with two main fleets, one based out of Korea (one of Kahn’s vassals at the time) and another out of Southern China. They fleets suffered heavy losses at both Tsushima and Hakata Bay. Despite the failure in battle, something strange happened. The fleet disappeared without a clear story of what happened to it. Some told stories of a terrible storm coming and destroying the whole fleet, whilst others said that the Mongols knew that they would be defeated by the heavy Japanese defenses and turned back. In both cases however, the ships would have been found. Until recently discoveries, it was unclear what happened to the fleet because no remains had been found, but the ships had not returned. Until the recent discovery of some remains believed to be part of the fleet was discovered, it was believed that the fleet had been destroyed by an extremely large storm, and according to the Japanese, that storm was believed to be a divine wind gifted to the Japanese to protect their homeland. While the reason behind the storm was quickly refuted and dispelled by historians, the idea of a terrible storm destroying Khan’s enormous fleet was believed to be the most likely reason. Delgado uses mostly the tales of Japanese history along with those of Marco Polo to formulate an idea of what happened to the fleet before any archeological evidence was found. These tales tell of harsh winds destroying the large fleet seem plausible given the weather patterns of the area, but because of the way people described wartime situations lead to exaggerations there’s some doubt. Despite the logic and general likelihood of the storm existing, the lack of any physical evidence of Khan’s fleet being hinder’s any arguments suggesting so. By 1980, Torao Mozai, one of the world's first experts in
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After the Mongols attacked Japan the first time (before Khan ended the Song Dynasty), the Japanese knew that they’d be back, so readied real defense so the wouldn’t immediately lose an island at the initial fighting. In addition to ramping up their defenses, their was a general moral boost when fighting the Mongols. They had been seen as unbeatable warriors, never being truly defeated in battle, so when the Samurai (defenders of Japan) learned that they could receive great rewards for success in battle, the Japanese were more committed to battle. This was exemplified by one Samurai, Takezaki Suenaga, who told his tale to the Japanese government to receive compensation. Suenaga in order to prove that he fought bravely drew pictures to tell the stories about how he was the first to charge into battle. This news got around to the rest of the Japanese defenders, leading to the aforementioned moral boost. Japan also created the Ghenko Borui, a figurative wall of defenses to prepare for the next invasion force. The defenses were also tightened by the replacement of feudal lords after the first Mongol invasion to those that were more closely aligned to those of the Bakufu (military body of Japan) due to a lack of fighting from the old feudal lords’
After the Mongols attacked Japan the first time (before Khan ended the Song Dynasty), the Japanese knew that they’d be back, so readied real defense so the wouldn’t immediately lose an island at the initial fighting. In addition to ramping up their defenses, their was a general moral boost when fighting the Mongols. They had been seen as unbeatable warriors, never being truly defeated in battle, so when the Samurai (defenders of Japan) learned that they could receive great rewards for success in battle, the Japanese were more committed to battle. This was exemplified by one Samurai, Takezaki Suenaga, who told his tale to the Japanese government to receive compensation. Suenaga in order to prove that he fought bravely drew pictures to tell the stories about how he was the first to charge into battle. This news got around to the rest of the Japanese defenders, leading to the aforementioned moral boost. Japan also created the Ghenko Borui, a figurative wall of defenses to prepare for the next invasion force. The defenses were also tightened by the replacement of feudal lords after the first Mongol invasion to those that were more closely aligned to those of the Bakufu (military body of Japan) due to a lack of fighting from the old feudal lords’