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Konishi and Kato continued the combination of their forces as they approached this position, but, contrary to expectation, the Koreans fought in the open and the castle fell without difficulty. Thereafter, the two corps separated, Kato taking the westerly road and Konishi the direct route to Seoul.
The Hidetsugu catastrophe accentuated the lines of division, and the Korean campaign had a similar effect by affording a field for bitter rivalry between the forces of Konishi Yukinaga, who belonged to the Yodo faction, and Kato Kiyomasa, who was a protege of Hideyoshi's wife, Yae.
It is not possible or even probable, however, that any seeds of Christianity were at this time left in the peninsula. Korean Christianity sprang up nearly two centuries later, wind-wafted from China. During the war there was always more or less of jealousy, mostly military and personal, between Konishi and Kato, which however was aggravated by the priests on either side.
Konishi and Kato now again separated, the former continuing the direct advance northward, and the latter taking the northeastern route, which he ultimately followed along the whole of the coast as far as Kyong-sang, whence he turned inland and finally reached Hai-ryong, a place destined to acquire much importance in modern times as the point of junction of the Kilin-Korean railways.
"It is true that Konishi Yukinaga, who commanded the first division, desired to continue his northward march from Pyong-yang without delay. He argued that China was wholly unprepared, and that the best hope of ultimate victory lay in not giving her time to collect her forces. But the commander-in-chief, Ukita Hideiye, refused to endorse this plan.
She despatched to Pyong-yang an envoy named Chen Weiching known in Japanese history as Chin Ikei who was instructed not to conclude peace but only to make such overtures as might induce the Japanese to agree to an armistice, thus enabling the Chinese authorities to mobilize a sufficient force. Konishi Yukinaga fell into this trap.
In the great battle which raised him to the head of affairs some of the Christian leaders were killed. Konishi, a Christian general, who had commanded one division of the army in Corea, was executed. On every side there was evidence of a change in the tide of affairs, and the Christians of Japan began to despair. The daimios no longer bade their followers to become Christians.
After months of preparation, he despatched an army in two great divisions, one under the Christian general Konishi, and one under the Buddhist general Kato. After a brilliant campaign of eighteen days, the rivals, taking different routes, met in the Korean capital. In the masterly campaign which followed, the Japanese armies penetrated almost to the extreme northern boundary of the kingdom.
Konishi, on the other hand, was less numerously and perhaps less influentially backed by, and made the champion of, the European brethren; and as all the negotiations between the invaders and the allied Koreans and Chinese had to be conducted in the Chinese script, the alien fathers were, as secretaries and interpreters, less useful than the native Japanese bonzes.
Further fuel was added to this fire of antagonism when the order went forth that the army should leave Korea, for the Kato faction protested against surrendering all the fruits of the campaign without any tangible recompense, and the Konishi party insisted that the Taiko's dying words must be obeyed implicitly.
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