Demographic Impacts of the East Asian War in 1592-1598

Sangwoo Han, Ajou University
Byunggui Son, Sungkyunkwan University

Korea was devastated demographically during the East Asian War in 1592-1598 (Japanese Invasions of Korea). Although scholars believe that hundreds of thousands of Koreans were captured and enslaved by Hideyoshi's army during the war, only a few studies have focused on demographic changes after the war and provide empirical evidence from historical sources. This study explores traces of the East Asian War in the household registers of seventeenth-century Korea. The oldest extant household registers of Korea were published in 1606 or 1609. We can find extensive evidence of the impact of the war in those registers. Firstly, this study examines the population structures of those counties from the early seventeenth-century registers for evidence of the war. The most obvious finding is that, even with the characteristic population omission of those under 20 years of age, the percentage of the recorded population under 40 was relatively lower than the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This is a result of the impact of the war. Secondly, the registers include households that show the scars of the war. For instance, household heads reported to the local government the numbers of dead and captured family members and the same for nobi in their households. Finally, after the war, escaped captives from the Japanese islands reported themselves as returnees to receive tax and corvee exemptions. The household registers provide ample evidence of the impact of the war. Using the household registers, we can obtain a picture of the demographic impacts that resulted from the war, and we expect to show the cases of various households in crisis after the seven-year war. This is a first step to understanding the long-term changes to Korean society triggered by the East Asian War and the following Manchu invasions.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 110. Korean Families in Crisis Prior-20th Century