Narrow Road To The Deep North 25

In the first campaign, Hideyoshi easily took Seoul on May 10, 1592. At a war council in June, Japanese commanders divided the country into eight Hachidokuniwari subjugation routes. In only four months, Hideyoshi's forces would occupy much of Korea and breach an opening into Manchuria. Ming Chinese Emperor Wanli sent 43,000 soldiers into the peninsula, under general Li Rusong. On January 7, 1593 they recaptured Pyongyang and surrounded Seoul, but lost the Battle of Byeokjegwan in the suburbs.
In the same year, Hideyoshi’s wife, Nene, had a second son that would survive until adulthood, and create a potential succession problem.
To solve it, Hideyoshi exiled his nephew and provisional heir, Hidetsugu, to Mount Kōya, and two years later, ordered him to commit suicide. Any of Hidetsugu’s family members who did not follow his example were murdered in Kyoto, including 31 women and several children. 
A year before his death, in 1597, Hideyoshi made one of his final statements about his intent to suppress Christianity. On February 5, he had twenty-six Christians, five European Franciscan missionaries, one Mexican Franciscan missionary, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen Japanese laymen including three young boys, executed by public crucifixion in Nagasaki, as an example to Japanese who wanted to convert to Christianity. Make it want to sing.
In 1598, Hideyoshi led a second invasion of Korea, but met with even less success. Japanese troops remained pinned down in Gyeongsang province. The Koreans continually harassed Japanese forces through guerrilla warfare. While Hideyoshi's Battle of Sacheon was a major victory, all three parties to the war were exhausted. 
“Don't let my soldiers become spirits in a foreign land.” He told his commander. And then, on September 18, 1598, Toyotomi died of bubonic plague.
The Council of Five Elders kept his death secret to preserve morale, and Japanese forces in Korea were withdrawn back to Japan. Two very bold unsuccessful invasions of Korea had left Hideyoshi’s regime and loyal Toyotomi clans weakened, clan coffers and fighting strength depleted, and his vassals conflicted over responsibility for the failure. The dream of a Japanese conquest of China was postponed indefinitely. The new Tokugawa Shogunate not only prohibited any military expeditions to the mainland, but closed Japan to almost all foreigners during the years of their reign.