At last we've passed the phase of Yi's life where his every effort is thwarted by the machinations of corrupt officials and jealous superiors
Finally we can begin the story that sees Yi rise to be the national hero of Korea
But first we have to talk about the two contrasting
States that are about to meet in bloody battle. if you watched the Sengoku Jidai episodes you'll remember that Japan had just come
Out of a hundred years of ceaseless war. Their entire
Society was built off of a martial hierarchy where the most glorious thing a man could do was fight.
Japan had fielded giant armies and had an economy devoted to war. They had hundreds of
thousands of Veteran Soldiers
And they had seasoned generals
Battle-Hardened from years of campaigning, and now for the first time ever all those forces were unified under one man, Toyotomi hideyoshi.
the Korean State had by contrast been mostly at peace for
200 years. The state itself was a Confucian bureaucracy which should have meant that it was an enlightened meritocracy,
but in truth the Korean government was rotten to its core, full of factional infighting,
and led by a king who perhaps might have been a great leader in times of peace,
But was utterly unsuited for a state of war, in terms of military
thinking, the Japanese had spent years perfecting the art of war. The Daimyos had become early adopters of the arquebus,
and had rapidly innovated on firearm manufacturing and tactics.They had created movable field works to protect their gunners.
Coordinated the use of Spears and Arquebusuirs, drilled the men to release large
simultaneous volleys to break up a charge, and trained them to wait to fire until they were within an effective range
They were such enthusiastic
adopters of the Arquebus that when the Japanese
Eventually arrived on Korean shores, about a quarter of their total force would be armed with this fearsome weapon. the Japanese had also become
masters of the siege after so many decades of having to topple the highly wrought master crafted Japanese castles of the Sengoku age
The Koreans on the other hand, had largely ignored the introduction of personal firearms and still relied mainly on the bow,
but because the bow is a weapon that requires a great deal of
Training and the Korean military was in a dissipated state, the actual number of effective troops they could field with this weapon was now very
limited.The lists of who they could call to military service were all out of date, and so the initial mustering of
forces would lag behind.And Korean defensive works were mostly just simple stone walls atop Hills or mountains.
but the Koreans did have two advantages...
Since the war that had been burning through Japan for the last hundred years was a civil war, and thus mostly land-based
Japan hadn't built up its navy nearly as much as their other armed forces.
Additionally while Japan Produced vastly superior handguns,
The Koreans had developed better Naval Cannon,and this all make sense when you think about it what both of these forces were uses to facing.
Japanese forces were used to fighting large organized land armies
and so they'd focused on developing the weapons and techniques required to counter them, whereas Korea had mostly dealt with pirates and raiders, so they
built Cannon to help defend their coast, and they built simple hill forts so that when raiders showed up the people could hide in the
forts and simply wait for the Raiders to go away
They didn't need complex structures because the enemy Korea usually faced wasn't an enemy bent on conquest
but that was about to change...
Between 1587 and 1592 emissaries Raced back and Forth between Japan and Korea,
Hideyoshi wanted the Koreans to just let him March his armies through their lands in order to attack his intended target, China
But besides the fact that letting giant foreign armies march across your country is generally a bad idea the Koreans also happened to be
tributary allies of the Chinese with strong,cultural, and economic ties, so letting this army March through uncontested was out of the question.
This whole thing seemed like madness to them,The idea that the Japanese would even ask for such a thing was unfathomable to many
in court. at first they assumed the request must be a bluff. Maybe a negotiating tactic
that would eventually end in the Japanese asking for trade concessions or tribute or something. but Ryu Song Nyong saw further to what was really
about to go down...
And so he got Yi a naval appointment in the
Southwestern part of Korea, and helped to make sure that he rose rapidly through the ranks. Becoming the naval commander for the province by 1591
this is where Yi's story really begins, upon taking command
Yi saw the dire straits the Navy was in and knew he had little time.He began drilling his men and instilling in them the
Spirit they needed for the war to come. He commissioned a new type of ship,the famous turtle ship which he helped design.
It was a remarkable piece of naval technology with a spiked roof to keep enemy boarding parties out, and the dragon head
-Prow That could serve as a cannon or billow out noxious smoke.
But even before the first of these ships could see active service, it happened...
Sentries all across the southeast coast began to spot ships coming over the Horizon.
then tens of ships, then hundreds, this massive fleet flew no sails known to Korean arms.
Fires were lit, and word was spread. Japanese were coming...
But the local commanders refused to believe what they were seeing, they suggested that maybe it was a trade fleet.
Or maybe even a large tribute mission from the Japanese to apologize for how rude their ambassadors have been, And so the local commanders did
Nothing. the approaching ships began to dock at Busan.
Soldiers fully armored and prepared for war, began to disembark from the ships, and still the local commanders did nothing.By nightfall,
300 ships full of Warriors had landed, a Japanese army was now in Korea.
Finally the commanders realized what had just happened, but by now...
It was far too late, with well over a hundred heavy Korean ships of war at the ready,
They had just sat and watched this happen without even moving a single one of those ships out to scout the fleet. If they had,
They would have found out that this was a Japanese commander acting against orders, eager to be the first to Korea.
He had sailed his fleet before their warship arrived. Turns out nearly all of those hundreds of ships ,were unarmed transports.
No match for the Korean Navy, which still sat anchored at port doing nothing. The Japanese force moved like lightning.
Smashing army after army, crushing all in their way. Within the month, the Japanese were already in Seoul,
200 miles inland.
Korean resistance had collapsed, and as the Japanese had pushed inland and moved out of Busan, the local commanders had scuttled their fleets
A hundred Korean warships lost without a fight, but Busan's local commanders had sent word to Yi asking for his help.
So Yi set out with all 24 ships under his command.
Writing to other local commanders and telling them to rendezvous with him at sea.
He left under cover of darkness, and sailed through the night so his movements wouldn't be observed. By the time the various fleets met,
they'd scraped together 45 warships, and a handful of commandeered fishing ships.
But Yi, despite never having commanded a battle at sea before, had a plan,
He would fall on the Japanese while they were in harbor, during the chaos of a sack.
He found fifty of their vessel tied up at Okpo, and descended upon them.
The Japanese were mostly away from their ships at the time, looting and slaughtering the population.
The roar of cannon alerted them to their mistake.
Yi and his fleet tore through the enemy ships.
Salvo after salvo, ripping into the light wood of the Japanese vessels.
The Japanese tried to mount a defense, but to no avail.
Soon their men were throwing their weapons and armor overboard, and trying to swim for the shore.
By nightfall, 26 Japanese ships rested at the bottom of the Harbor.
Only one Korean sailor was injured.
Yi decided to disappear back into open water, before his forces fell into the same trap
he'd just sprung on his enemy. But, as they sailed one of his outlying ships spotted five more Japanese warships!
Yi fell upon them with a vengeance. Only one managed to escape. Then new reports came in of thirteen more ships near Chinhae.
When the sailors on those ships saw Yi, they abandoned their vessels entirely and fled on foot into the mountains.
Forty-three Japanese ships sunk and Yi had not lost a single vessel.
He was promoted to general command of the Southern Navy for his actions
But the sight of Japanese slaughtering civilians would stick with him forever, and hardened his resolve to defend the people of Korea.
Join us next time as everyone else in Korea keeps losing, and Admiral Yi keeps winning.