KOREAN ADMIRAL
YI SUN-SIN
ADMIRAL WHO NEVER LOST AN WAR
SARASIJ MAJUMDER
Let’s assume you have 13 warships. They’re nice ships.
They’re strong and they have good armaments.
You have to beat a fleet of 130 warships plus 200 more
transport ships. The warships are all loaded with cannons and the transports
are loaded with soldiers and marines. Their ships aren’t quite as good as
yours, but there’s a lot more of them. You have to defeat this fleet, or else
it’s over, and you have to face it directly.
This was the dilemma Korean admiral Yi Sun-sin found himself
in during the fall of 1597. He had commanded the Korean navy against a Japanese
invasion of his country for years, ever since they first crossed the sea in
1592. Through hard fighting and ingenious strategy, Yi succeeded in stalemating
the massive Japanese army and navy in 1596. However, a renewed attack hit the
Korean peninsula in 1597.
Unfortunately for Yi, he had enemies in the imperial court,
and one of them got him demoted in favour of one of his subordinates. He was
nearly kicked out of the navy over false accusations, and he stood idly by,
helpless, as his incompetent replacement blundered the entire Korean navy away
in a single surprise attack.
Thus was his predicament. Restored to command of the
navy in desperation, given the remaining thirteen friendly ships in all of
Korea, and told to win an impossible victory.
Yi chose his battle site: the Pyeongyang Strait.
Early in the morning of October 26, the Japanese fleet
spotted Korean ships at the south entrance of the Pyeongyang Strait. The Korean
ships swiftly retreated and formed a perimeter protecting the northern exit of
the strait. The tide was flowing in the Japanese favour, pushing their ships
into the strait. They followed it into the fray.
Yi’s flagship was the only ship willing to fight. The other
Korean sailors were demoralized by defeat and awed by the size of the Japanese
fleet, standing back and holding fire. Cannons, arquebus shots, and arrows fell
upon Yi’s flagship, which stood alone like a fortress under siege.
The narrow strait only allowed a certain number of Japanese
ships to line up, limiting the effectiveness of sheer numbers and preventing
the Koreans from being overwhelmed. The determination of Yi’s flagship
emboldened his comrades, and the rest of the ships joined in. Nevertheless, the
Koreans were still vastly outnumbered, the tide was still pushing the Japanese
farther forward, and the distance between the fleets was closing fast.
However, Yi knew something the Japanese did not: the exact
nature of the strait’s currents. Around midday, he knew that high tides would
change the direction of the water and give the Koreans the initiative instead.
This is exactly what happened. At precisely the calculated
time, the tides shifted the current and the Japanese ships began drifting
backwards. The Japanese were unprepared for this, and their tightly packed
battle formations began to crash into one another.
Yi took full advantage. He ordered a heavy barrage on the
vulnerable Japanese ships. Many of them were sunk, and many others limped away
heavily damaged as the current swept them out of the strait. In the chaos, as
many as half of the Japanese sailors ended up in the sea as prisoners or dead
men.
With this one victory, Yi defended Korea’s waters from
Japanese naval encroachment. Japanese soldiers in Korea were unable to be
resupplied, greatly decreasing their morale.
A year later, Yi would win a final victory against the
Japanese navy at the nor yang Strait. He died in the fighting, shot by a
Japanese gunner while beating the war drum and pursuing the enemy fleet in his
flagship. He never suffered a defeat in naval combat, nor did he ever lose
a single ship.
Yi Sun-sin was the greatest admiral of all time. His
ingenious use of the strait, both as a bottleneck and as a literal turn of the
tide, earned him perhaps the greatest naval victory of all time.
SOURCE:-- WHEN I VISITED SEOUL, COLLECTED THE DETAILS FROM A NAVAL MUSEUM.
IMAGE:-- GOOGLE.
Comments
Post a Comment