28 April 1593
Donated by the Homma family
Okabe Hyōe is thought to have been one of the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s associates in Hizen, Nagoya (corresponding to present-day Karatsu City in Saga Prefecture). 28 April 1593 is when Kiyomasa and other Japanese troops invading Joseon at the time retreated from Seoul to the Busan area, as the situation had swung in favour of the Joseon and Ming forces.
In this letter, Kiyomasa informs Hyōe that he will send the Joseon princes captured during the previous year to Nagoya with three vassals, and that he would be reporting his war exploits in detail to Asano Nagamasa, who had arrived in Busan.
He also outlines his discomfort with the unfavourable rumours about him circulating within the administrations. The reason the war was going badly, writes Kiyomasa, is because the Japanese were bored with the long military campaign. This indicates that he was deeply troubled by the internal friction within the administration and low army morale.