During the 1590s, a samurai named Toyotomi Hideyoshi had gained control over most of Japan. As a leader, he played a historically significant role as one of three great unifiers of Japan, following a century of civil war. (From about the 1460s through the 1560s, Japan had been in a state of constant internal warfare. Between 1560 and 1600, first Oda Nobunaga, then Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and finally Tokuawa Ieyasu unified Japan. More details of this period are described in an essay entitled The Epoch of Unification.)

After gaining power within Japan, Hideyoshi embarked on two attacks of the Korean peninsula, one from 1591-1593, when it was met with resistance by Chinese forces, and a second one from 1597 until his death in 1598. Traditionally, certain samurai soldiers would bring back evidence to indicate that they had killed opposing soldiers in certain circumstances. According to one telling of the story, as a practical point, it was deemed that the best way to bring back evidence of fallen enemy soliders from Korea, given the distance, was to cut off the dead soldiers nose (or an ear, depending on the source). During the 1597-98 campaign, over 40,000 noses (or ears) were brought back to Japan, and are buried in the mound in the photograph. The memorialization of this mound has become a source of great historic controversy, both between Japan and Korea, and amongst Japanese. The photograph provides a good chance to discuss the meaning of a memorialization as well as the uses of history in contemporary politics. For example, does the mount represent a slap in the fact to Korea and a memorialization of an early attempt at Japanese aggression, or has it been transformed into a memorial for the victims and a reminder of a failed attempt at Japanese overseas aggression?

Click here for a photo of the area surrounding the hill.