Treasure of Khan

Aboard the Korean mugun, Temur and his men clung desperately to the ship as it was tossed like a cork in a washing machine. Yon expertly guided the vessel through the teeth of the storm, fighting to keep his bow to the waves. Several times, the wooden ship heeled so far over that Temur thought she would capsize. Yet there was Yon standing tall at the rudder as the ship righted itself, a determined grin on his face as he did battle with the elements. It wasn't until a monster forty-foot wave suddenly appeared out of the gloom that the salty captain turned pale.

The huge wall of water bore down on them with a thunderous roar. The cresting wave swept onto the ship like an avalanche, burying the vessel in a froth of sea and foam. For several seconds, the Korean ship disappeared completely under the raging sea. Men belowdecks felt their stomachs drop from the force of the plunge and oddly noted the howl of the wind vanish as everything went black. By all rights, the wooden ship should have broken to pieces by the wave's pounding. But the tough little vessel held together. As the giant wave rolled past, the ship rose like an apparition from the deep and regained her position on the frenzied sea.

Temur was tossed across the deck during the submersion and barely clung to a ladder rung as the ship flooded. He gasped for air as the vessel resurfaced and was distraught to see that the masts had been torn off the ship. Behind him, a sharp cry rang out in the water off the stern. Glancing about the deck, he realized with horror that Yon and five Korean seamen, along with a handful of his own men, had been swept off the ship. A chorus of panicked cries pierced the air momentarily before it was washed out by the howl of the wind. Temur caught sight of the captain and men struggling nearby in the water. He could only watch helplessly as a large wave carried them from his sight.

Without masts and crew, the ship was now at the complete mercy of the storm. Pitching and wallowing feebly in the seas, pounded and flooded by the high waves, the ship had a thousand opportunities to founder. But the simple yet robust construction of the Korean ship kept her afloat while around her scores of Chinese ships vanished into the depths.

After several intense, buffeting hours, the winds slowly died down and the pelting rains ceased. For a brief moment, the sun broke clear, and Temur thought the storm had ended. But it was just the eye of the typhoon passing over, offering a brief reprieve before the assault would continue again. Belowdecks, Temur found two Korean sailors still aboard and forced them to help man the ship. As the winds picked up and the rains returned, Temur and the sailors took turns tying themselves to the rudder and battling the deadly waves.

Lost as to position or even the direction they sailed, the men bravely focused on keeping the ship afloat.

Unaware that they were now absorbing the counterclockwise winds that swirled from the north, they were pushed rapidly through open water to the south. The brunt of the typhoon's energy had been expended as it struck Kyushu, so the battering was less intense than before. But gusts over ninety miles per hour still buffeted the vessel, blasting it roughly through the seas. Blinded by the pelting rain, Temur had little clue to their path. Several times the ship nearly approached landfall, inching by islands, rocks, and shoals that went unseen in the gloom of the storm. Miraculously, the ship blew clear, the men aboard never realizing how close they came to death.

The typhoon raged day and night before gradually losing its power, the rain and winds fading to a light squall. The Korean mugun, battered and leaky, held fast and clung to the surface with gritty pride.

Though the captain and crew were lost and the ship was a crippled mess, they had survived all that the killer storm could throw at them. A quiet sense of luck and destiny settled over them as the seas began to calm.

No such luck befell the rest of the Mongol invasion force, which was brutally decimated by the killer typhoon. Nearly the entire Yangtze Fleet was destroyed, smashed to bits against the rocky shoreline or sunk by the vicious seas. A jumbled array of broken timber from huge Chinese junks, Korean warships, and oar-driven barges littered the shoreline. In the water, the cries of the dying had long since echoed over the shrieks of the wind. Many of the soldiers, clothed in heavy leather body armor, sank immediately to the bottom upon being cast in the waves. Others fought through the throes of panic to stay afloat, only to be pummeled by the endless onslaught of massive waves. The lucky few who crawled ashore alive were quickly cut up by marauding bands of samurai roving the shoreline. After the storm, the dead littered the beaches like stacked cords of wood. Half-sunken wrecks lined the horizon off Kyushu in such numbers that it was said a man could walk across the Imari Gulf without getting wet.

The remnants of the invasion fleet limped back to Korea and China with the unthinkable news that Mother Nature had again spoiled the Mongol plans of conquest. It was a crushing defeat for Kublai Khan. The disaster represented the worst defeat suffered by the Mongols since the reign of Genghis Khan, and showed the rest of the world that the forces of the great empire were far from invincible.

For the Japanese, the arrival of the killer typhoon was nothing less than a miracle. Despite the destruction incurred on Kyushu, the island had been spared conquest and the invading forces defeated.

Most believed it could only have come as a result of the eleventh-hour prayers to the Sun Goddess at the Shrine of Ise. Divine intervention had prevailed, a sure sign that Japan was blessed with heavenly protection to ward off foreign invaders. So strong was the belief in the Kami-Kaze, or "divine wind" as it was called, that it permeated Japanese history for centuries, reappearing as the appellation for the suicide pilots of World War II.

***

Aboard the Korean troopship, Temur and the surviving crew had no idea as to the devastation suffered by the invasion fleet. Blown out to sea, they could only assume that the invading force would regroup after the storm passed and continue the assault.

"We must rejoin the fleet," Temur told the men. "The emperor is expecting victory and we must fulfill our duty."

There was only one problem. After three days and nights of severe weather, tossed about without mast and sails, there was no telling where they were. The weather cleared, but there were no other ships in sight. Worse for Temur, there was nobody aboard capable of navigating a vessel at sea. The two Korean sailors who survived the storm were a cook and an aged ship's carpenter, neither possessing navigation skills.

"The land of Japan must be to the east of us," he conferred with the Korean carpenter. "Construct a new mast and sails, and we shall use the sun and stars to guide us east until we reach landfall and relocate the invasion fleet."

The old carpenter argued that the ship was not seaworthy. "She is battered and leaking. We must sail northwest, to Korea, to save ourselves," he cried.

But Temur would have none of it. A temporary mast was hastily constructed and makeshift sails raised.

With a fresh determination, the Mongol soldier-turned-sailor guided the waylaid ship toward the eastern horizon, anxious to put ashore again and rejoin the battle.

***

Two days passed, and all Temur and his men could see was blue water. The Japanese mainland never materialized. Thoughts of changing course were dispelled when yet another storm crept up on them from the southwest. Though less intense than the earlier typhoon, the tropical storm was widespread and slow moving. For five days, the troopship battled the throes of high winds and heavy rains that pitched them wildly about the ocean. The beaten ship seemed to be reaching its limits. The temporary mast and sails were again lost overboard to the gales, while leaks below the waterline kept the carpenter working around the clock. More disconcerting, the entire rudder broke free of the ship, taking with it two of Temur's soldiers, who clung to it for dear life.