 Due to setbacks in land and sea battles, the Japanese armies had been driven back to their network of fortresses, or "wajō" (和城), on the southeastern Korean coast.However, the "wajō" could not hold the entire Japanese army, so, in June 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Taikō who instigated the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), and also the acting Japanese Lord of War, ordered 70,000 troops mostly from the Japanese Army of the Right to withdraw to the archipelago.On 18 September 1598, Hideyoshi unexpectedly died at Fushimi castle.