recent success and possibly misled by false reports, Li Rusong advanced towards the capital city of Hanseong with his allied army of 20,000 on January 21, 1593. On January 26, the force ran into an unexpected confrontation at Byeokjegwan with a large Japanese formation of about 30,000. Initially, the scouting party of the group under Cha Da Sho and a Korean general confronted a small band of Japanese numbering no more than 600 men. The party overran them successfully but soon ran into a much larger host under Tachibana Muneshige, and retreated to a nearby hill to defend themselves. Upon hearing of his scouting party's plight, Li decided to rush forward with the rest of his small host. He met up with his scouting party around noon, but by that time even more Japanese forces were converging on the area. The Ming forces gradually retreated north while fighting off several waves of attacks. Li Rusong and many other generals personally fought in the brawl, and they sustained heavy casualties before they met up with the rest of their army toward the later portion of the day. Li's horse was killed, and he was saved from being cut down by a samurai when Chinese officer, Li Yousheng, sacrificed himself by taking on the samurai who killed him, but in the interval, Li escaped. During the ferocious fighting, Chinese armor proved no match for the katanas of the Japanese while the Japanese infantry proved equal to repulsing Chinese cavalry. The Japanese pursued the defeated Ming army back up the pass to its highest point, and after a few more hours of fighting.History of Ming chapter 238 "官軍喪失甚多。會天久雨，騎入稻畦中不得逞。倭背嶽山，面漢水，聯營城中，廣樹飛樓，箭砲不絕，官軍乃退駐開城。" https://zh.m.wikisource.org/wiki/明史/卷238History of Ming chapter 320 "如松既勝，輕騎趨碧蹄館，敗，退駐開城。" https://zh.m.wikisource.org/wiki/明史/卷320 At that point, the Japanese gave up further attacks and both sides pulled back. Because the Ming suffered heavy casualties among their elite retinues, Li became reluctant to move aggressively for the remainder of the war. However, the Japanese victory "did nothing to change the overall strategy, and the retreat from Hanseong was delayed only by a few days". Battle of Haengju The Japanese invasion into Jeolla Province was broken down and pushed back by General Gwon Yul at the hills of Ichiryeong, where outnumbered Koreans fought Japanese troops in the Battle of Byeokjegwan and gained a victory. Gwon Yul quickly advanced northwards, retaking Suwon and then swung north toward Haengju Fortress, a wooden stockade on a cliff