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The Toi invasion (刀伊の入寇 toi no nyūko) was the invasion
of northern
Kyushu by
Jurchen pirates in
1019. Toi (되, doe) means barbarian in
Korean.
Sailing in about 50 ships from direction of
Goryeo, the Toi pirates assaulted
Iki,
Tsushima and then
Hakata Bay. Using Noko Island (能古島 noko no shima) in the bay as the
base, they despoiled villages and kidnapped Japanese people for use as
slaves for a week. At that time,
Fujiwara no Takaie served as the head of
Dazaifu, the administrative center of Kyushu. He braced soldiers and
successfully drove them away.
Some enemies were captured by Japanese army in Matsura, but all of them
were identified as Koreans. They said that they had guarded the borderland
but had been captured by the Toi. However, Japanese officers suspected
them because there had been a lot of Korean pirates in the
Silla period. A few months later, the Goryeo delegate Jeong Jaryang
(鄭子良) reported that Goryeo attacked the pirates in the offing of
WΕnsan and rescued about 260 Japanese. There remains detailed reports
by two captive women, Kura no Iwame and Tajihi no Akomi.
These Jurchen pirates lived in what is today Hamgyŏngdo,
North Korea. They frequently attacked the eastern coast of the Korean
peninsula. In particular,
Ulleungdo became uninhabited because of their massive attacks. The
invasion in 1019 was one of those incidents.
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