Prelude to War

Japanese Shogun Hideyoshi; the man responsible for the 1592 invasion of Korea.

Prior to 1592 the Japanese warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi had continued his predecessor Oda Nobunaga’s dream of uniting all of the Japanese islands under one Shogun. With the consolidation of all the Japanese islands under the rule of Hideyoshi, he became hungry for more military conquests, plus he had to keep his men busy or in a long line of prior Japanese conspiracies they could turn on and dispose of him as well.

So in 1592 Hideyoshi set off to conquer China by first of all subjugating the kingdom of Chosun. China was considered the standard bearer of culture at the time and a Japanese defeat of the Chinese would prove the superiority of the Japanese people over the cultured Chinese who had long considered the Japanese a nation of pirates. The Korean Chosun kingdom was a fractured society with a backward fuedal Yangban class that was expected not to put up much of an organized resistance. In fact the Japanese demanded that the Koreans allow them access through their country to attack China. The Koreans had long respected the Chinese and the Korean court did not take the threat of invasion by the Japanese seriously because they had long been considered nothing more than barbarian pirates. However, Korea was looked at by the Japanese as a afterthought to the eventual conquest of China while the Koreans looked with indifference to the Japanese threats due to their perceived superiority over the Japanese barbarians. This indifference would cost the Koreans hundreds of thousands of lives due to a military and citizenry unprepared for the invasion.

The views of the Japanese were initially proven true as the 150,000 soldiers in the Japanese military raced from one victory after another over the ineffective Korean military in what would become known in Korea as the Imjimgaeran War. One Japanese victory in the city of Sangju turned the defenders of that city into Korea’s version of the Alamo, however the Korean people still didn’t have a Davy Crockett to rally behind like the Texans did after the Alamo. That was until Admiral Yi Sun-shin came onto the scene.

Admiral Yi had received a request for military assistance from Admiral Won Kyun of Pusan who commanded all the naval forces of Kyongsang province in southwestern Korea. Yi was initially reluctant to come to Won’s aid because he had only 24 ships and the turtle boats were not yet complete. After confering with his fellow Cholla commanders, Yi decided to come to Won’s aid despite the shortage of boats and no official orders from Seoul to assist Won.

Though Yi would be greatly outnumbered by the Japanese Navy he felt he would still have a chance to defeat them due to the number of advantages he did enjoy. He and his men were extremely familiar with the many islands, bays, and tides that make up the southern coast of the Korean peninsula. Plus the local Korean population would prove to be a great asset in gathering military intelligence on the Japanese forces. Finally the Korean ships were much stronger than Japanese ships. The Korean boats were large and extremely sturdy and featured large cannons that gave Korean ships an advantage in naval firepower.

One of the heavy cannons that gave Admiral Yi’s navy superior firepower over the invading Japanese naval forces.

An ironic fact about the Japanese military is that for being an island nation they had poor naval power to compliment their superior army. Admiral Yi understood this and felt that for Korea to successfully defeat the Japanese he would need to destroy the Japanese navy which would prevent the Japanese from resupplying their army on the Korean mainland.

In June of 1592 Admiral Yi would begin to implement his strategy by winning his first naval battle at the port of Okpo located on Geoje-do island. Before the battle Admiral Yi had been able to increase his naval force to a total of 91 ships by recruiting fishing vessels to sail with his 24 warships. Admiral Yi’s fleet ambushed 50 Japanese boats that had been raiding the city of Okpo. In the initial battle Yi’s fleet destroyed 26 of the Japanese ships without any Korean losses. Over the next two days of battle Yi would sink 18 more Japanese ships without any friendly losses. This victory was only a prelude of greater victories to come led by Admiral Yi’s legendary “turtle boats”.

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