Korea's greatest admiral had never fought at sea before his first victory
When Japanese troops landed at Busan in 1592, Yi Sun-sin had spent his career fighting raiders on Korea's northern land frontier and had never commanded a naval battle. Within weeks he won at Okpo without losing a ship. By most counts he went on to fight at least 23 sea battles and win every one.
His road there was rough. Born in Seoul in 1545 to a noble family whose fortunes had faded, he had to make his own way. At his first military examination in 1576 he impressed with his archery, then broke a leg during the cavalry test and failed, passing only on a later attempt. At 32 he was the oldest junior officer on the northern frontier, where he captured a Jurchen chief in 1583. Jealous superiors, led by General Yi Il, then falsely accused him of desertion; he lost his rank, was jailed and tortured, and returned to service as a common soldier.
The scholar-official Yu Sŏngnyong, a neighbour from his youth, helped revive his career. In 1591 Yi took command of the Left Jeolla naval district at Yeosu and began rebuilding its fleet, including the armoured turtle ship. It paid off quickly. When Toyotomi Hideyoshi's armies swept north and reached Seoul in nineteen days, Yi's squadron started picking off Japanese vessels along the southern coast.
At Sacheon he feigned retreat to draw a dozen ships out of harbour, then turned on them with the turtle ship leading; he took a bullet in the left shoulder and survived. At Hansan Island in August 1592 he sent six ships to lure a Japanese fleet out of a narrow, rocky strait into open water, where his vessels closed around it in a curved formation he called the crane wing and bombarded it with cannon while keeping enough distance to prevent boarding. After that defeat, Hideyoshi ordered his forces to stop naval operations altogether.
Yi's most dramatic win came later at Myeongnyang, where 13 Korean ships beat a fleet of at least 133. He was killed by a gunshot at Noryang on 16 December 1598, the war's last major battle. His war diary, the Nanjung Ilgi, is listed in UNESCO's Memory of the World register.
Source: Yi Sun-sin
