Japanese chroniclers on the second invading campaign mention that the ears hacked off the faces of the massacred were also of ordinary civilians[14] mostly in the provinces Gyeongsang, Jeolla, and Chungcheong.[2]:pp. 475–476 In the second invasion, Hideyoshi's orders were thus:

Mow down everyone universally, without discriminating between young and old, men and women, clergy and the laity—high ranking soldiers on the battlefield, that goes without saying, but also the hill folk, down to the poorest and meanest—and send the heads to Japan.[15]