Front Page News Article

Typhoon kills thousands of soldiers

by Shbeer Ahmed

The China Times

1281

Emperor of China Kublai Khan has gone to try and conquer Japan for the second time. He has over 100,000 soldier and the Japanese only have 40,000 soldiers. So the Japanese are outmatched by a lot.
It was around autumn in 1274 when Kublai Khan did his first attack on the Japanese. The Mongols had around 40,000 soldier and the Japanese had around 10,000 samurais. The Japanese were outmatched in the first war. The Mongols had 300 to 600 vessels and the soldiers went sailing to Japan. First the Mongols took over the islands Tsushima and Ike which are the main islands of Japan. The Mongols killed all the residents in those islands and went sailing to the east. The Mongols reached Hakata Bay and they started fighting the samurais. The Mongols were defeating the Japanese but then reinforcements for the samurais came. 100 more samurais came and they helped the other samurais that were fighting to go back a few miles from the bay. Then during that night the Mongols went back to their ships and sailed further out to sea. But then a typhoon came and sunk most of their ships and 13,000 soldiers drowned. The remaining men went back home with a unsuccessful invasion.
This time Kublai Khan was going planned to defeat the Japanese and take their land and with even more soldiers. In the spring of 1281 he began the invasion. This time the Mongols sent two separate forces, one force had 900 ships with 40,000 soldiers and they sailed from Masan which is in Korea. The other force had 3,500 ships with 100,000 soldiers and they sailed from southern China. The ships that sailed form Korea came to Hakata Bay first on June 23, 1281. The ships from China couldn’t be seen from any direction. Since they were first, the Mongols went and fought but they couldn’t pass the Japanese defensive wall. For 50 days the war went on and the men that set sail from Southern China still hadn't arrived. But then in August the 100,000 Mongolian soldiers arrived and the Japanese were in serious trouble. They knew they are going to be defeated.
But then there was a miracle for the Japanese. Another typhoon came and destroyed almost all of the ships. A few hundred ships survived the waves and vicious winds. Most of the men drowned and the ones that came to shore were being killed by the samurais. Only a few Mongols got away.
One witness, Kublai Khan who is the Mongol Empire said that he won’t conquer Japan again. “After that second typhoon that came and attacked us i know Japan is protected by by gods and secret forces so i wont be going back there again”
Another witness who is one of Kublai Khans worker said that he should go back and conquer Japan. “I can’t believe it. It was bad was just bad luck. There are no gods there Kublai Khan should go back and conquer their land!”