OVERVIEW OF JAPANESE HISTORIC RELATIONS WITH OTHER COUNTRIES
Aside from unsuccessful attempts at invasion in 1274 and 1281 by the Mongols under Emperor Kublai Khan, Japan has neither faced a foreign invasion nor a crisis of national sovereignty due to foreign invaders throughout its history. A nine hundred-ship fleet faced a fierce challenge from Japanese samurai and bad weather; and was forced into retreat in 1274, the first attempt at invasion. In this attempt, a combined force of about thirty thousand Mongols, Chinese and Koreans tried to subdue Japan but were driven back by a big typhoon. Prior to this invasion, the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who had succeeded in subduing most of China and Korea, sent emissaries and demanded that Japanese rulers accept their country as being a tributary vassal of the Mongol kingdom. This was rejected by the Regent Hojo Tokimune (125 l~84) in Kyoto. After failing in his first attempt, Kublai Khan became even more determined to invade the Japanese archipelago. He sent a mission of envoys to convince the Jap...

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