By the end of the sixteenth century the Samurai, Japanese warrior-nobles, had taken total control of their domestic territory. Their unforgiving militarism needed a new foe to conquer: the target was China, the route to victory through Korea. But the Koreans were no pushover. It was a hard fought and, in the end, an unsuccessful campaign, the only time in their 1,500 year history that the Samurai had attacked another country. The Koreans drove them off. Retribution was inevitable. The Samurai returned in 1597 to wreak vengeance and terrible, wanton havoc on the Koreans in a war of unbelievable savagery. This book is the most complete account of those two invasions yet written, researched from forgotten archives in Japan and Korea and written by the world's most acclaimed historian of the Samurai period, the English Oriental specialist Dr Stephen Turnbull. This is a book that all followers of Samurai history will not be able to resist. It fabulously includes extracts from contemporary Japanese field diaries not seen even in Japan for over 400 years.