When we left off, Yi had crushed the Japanese at the battle of Myeongnyang and was busy
rebuilding the Korean navy after their disastrous losses while he was being falsely accused.
Now, just as he's beginning to coordinate with the Chinese navy on how to prosecute the war, something major happens.
Maybe the one event that can truly change the course of this war. Hideyoshi dies.
Six years and four months after the fateful Japanese landing on Korea, the man who started it all,
the man who envisioned a vast Asian Empire radiating out from Japan, died.
This was a sea change.
Hideyoshi had been holding the Japanese in Korea by sheer force of will. As soon as he died, the council of men who ran Japan
in his stead all looked at one another and said 'does anyone here actually want to keep fighting Korea?
Okay show of hands who wants to stay in Korea?
Nobody? All right then.'
With that they agreed to pull the Japanese forces out of there as soon as they could negotiate a deal which would let them withdraw
their forces safely.
But the Koreans were not so eager for peace after seeing hundreds of thousands of their countrymen slaughtered during Hideyoshi's invasion.
So admiral Yi continued to coordinate with the Chinese forces to bottle up the Japanese in one of their last
strongholds, the port of Suncheon. The Chinese army closed around the city on land and the Korean and Chinese
navies blockaded the port. Seeing the situation as hopeless, the Japanese commander decided the best option he had left was to try to bribe
everybody, but each time it seemed as though he was succeeding in bribing the Chinese contingents,
Yi shamed them into falling back in line. Seeing no
hope of peaceful retreat, the Japanese commander had one last plan.
He dispatched a messenger boat to slip through the Chinese lines and tell the other major Japanese garrison to deploy all their ships and
rendezvous with him as they tried to break their way through the Chinese and Korean blockade.
But Yi got word of this plan, and knew that he must prepare. The next night, November 15
1598, long after the Sun had fallen below the horizon, and the water had faded from blue to deep black,
Yi told his forces to slip away from the blockade.
They would try to intercept the reinforcing fleet in the fateful Noryang strait. Near 2:00 a.m.,
the joint Korean and
Chinese fleet fell upon the resting Japanese ships. At first it was chaos, cannon lighting up the water at night.
But soon the Japanese tried to regroup. Despite being caught off guard they still had 500 ships to the combined
150 of Yi and the Chinese. And moreover, they were fueled by desperation. If they lost here, who knows if they'd ever see Japan again?
But the Allied Forces had two
advantages going for them as well. For one, they had once again caught the Japanese in a strait where they could not easily maneuver their
massive fleet, and two, even if they could maneuver, many of their ships were
transports, which were only useful for boarding and arquebus fire in a fight.
In desperation, the Japanese attacked, driving their ships through the withering hail of the enemy cannonade.
Unfortunately for Yi,
the Chinese commander who wasn't used to fighting the Japanese and had no experience with Yi's long range form of naval warfare,
charged forward to meet the Japanese fleet and prepared to engage them in hand-to-hand combat.
The Chinese commander was surrounded. Dozens of Japanese ships descended on the Chinese flagship.
Yi ordered his own ship to attempt a rescue. Yi's flagship plunged into the midst of the enemy.
He was committed now.
It would be fierce close combat the rest of the way, exactly the type of fight Yi had always tried to avoid.
The vessels were so close that unarmed Korean sailors began throwing bundles of burning sticks down on the enemy decks.
As Yi's ship broke through the waves,
he spotted three of the enemy's admiral standing on the deck of one of the Japanese ships,
attacking his ally. And so, Yi drew his bow and loosed. One of the admirals fell. For a moment
there was almost a silence in the midst of the fighting as everybody looked to see where that arrow had come from.
Then one of the Japanese admirals roused himself from his shock and shouted that it was Yi. All the ships must attack
Yi! All the Japanese vessels turned and began to give chase to Yi's flagship.
But now it was the Chinese admiral's turn to take action, and his ships tore into the vessels pursuing Yi.
Soon the fight was on the deck of the Chinese flagship.
Chinese dao sparking against Japanese katana. In the end the Japanese boarding parties were repelled, but many from both sides lay dead on the deck.
As dawn began to bring light back to the scene, everyone could see how badly the Japanese were faring. They attempted to flee, but Yi would
have none of it. These people who had come to his land, who had despoiled his home,
who had slaughtered his people and endangered his nation. No. He would not let them flee.
He grabbed the mallet from the ship's drummer and began to beat the war drum himself,
urging his ship to go ever faster.
The haunting echo of the drum pushed the fleet on. Its beat hounded the Japanese, bit at their heels.
His fleet moved like it never had before. The drums steadily beating like the call of the god of war. They were upon the Japanese.
Cannons roared, arquebuses answered. Shouts and screams were heard as ship after ship was caught by the pursuing fleet.
Possessed by the beat of the drums of war.
But then just for an instant, the drums faltered. Seen by no one but his son, his nephew, and a loyal servant,
Yi had been struck by a stray arquebus ball.
They rushed to his side as he slumped against the drum, trying to aid him, asking if there was anything they could do.
With his last breath he said to them, 'We are about to win this war. Keep beating the drum.
Do not let anyone know of my death.' His son picked up the mallet and continued the beat.
Dressed in Yi's armor, his son and his nephew took up the command. For hours,
they were Yi, commanding as he would with all his ability and skill.
None of Yi's officers ever realized he had fallen until as the battle was closing the Chinese flagship was once again surrounded.
Yi's son ordered his ship into the thick. They darted forward,
breaking the cordon around the Chinese flagship, helping the Chinese to escape. The fighting was fierce,
but it was near the last of it. And as the day closed, the Chinese admiral sailed toward Yi's
flagship, and called out to thank Yi for saving him. To invite Yi to celebrate the glorious day together.
But he was met by Yi's son.
Instantly he knew what had happened and three times he threw himself to the deck wailing and crying out,
'Even after death you saved my life.'
This was the last battle of the war.
300 Japanese ships were destroyed or captured. After this the remaining Japanese
garrisons would either be captured one by one by the Chinese and Korean forces or slip back to Japan to fight one last struggle before
Tokugawa's ascension as shogun. At last the Imjin War was at an end.
Hideyoshi's dream of a Japanese Empire was broken. Korea was free, but Yi would never see it.
Thousands turned out to see his body returned to his small
Home village. People lined the road and wailed at the passing of a man they may never have met.
The Chinese admiral wrote for him a eulogy and even the court and the king tried to make their recompense.
And so passed the man so ill treated in life,
so often demoted and accused, the man who would forever be known as the Martial Lord of Loyalty.