Saturday, May 05, 2007
On the Trail of Admiral Yi Sunsin
Prof. Kenneth Swope of Ball State University has posted an all too brief account of his recent trip to Korea for a conference on the Imjin War (1592-1598):
Last summer I had the good fortune to participate in an international conference on the so-called Imjin War (1592-1598) held in the city of Tongyong, South Korea. I was one of only a handful of Western scholars invited to the conference, the majority being Korean and Japanese scholars. Although this was one of the most important and traumatic events in Korean history, probably more devastating than even the Korean War of the 1950s, very few Westerners know much about it. The war started because the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), who had risen from peasant beginnings to become the overlord and unifier of Japan, desired to extend his sway over the entire world as he knew it. This meant he needed to conquer China and eventually India. Because Korea was the shortest route to China from Japan and the Japanese did not have much of a navy at the time, Hideyoshi asked the king of Korea to allow his troops free passage to China. The king refused on the grounds that China and Korea had always been close neighbors on good terms and because he rightly did not trust the Japanese. So Korea became the first target and Hideyoshi assembled a vast host of over 150,000 to assail Korea in the spring of 1592, the year designated Imjin, or the year of the black water dragon, in the traditional Korean calendar.
Korea’s greatest hero in this national tragedy was a military officer named Yi Sunsin (1545-1598). It is impossible to overstate the importance of Admiral Yi for the Korean people. Virtually everything about Yi Sunsin is larger than life. He was a great archer, a skilled and innovative naval commander, and a dutiful son. He was repeatedly impeached and cashiered by jealous political rivals, only to return victorious. In one battle he is said to have destroyed a Japanese fleet of over 140 ships with only a dozen of his own redoubtable ironclad turtleboats as they came to be called. He even died in his final climatic battle, allegedly telling his nephew to keep his death a secret until the battle ended. It’s fair to say that his legend has only grown over the past four hundred years. Two years ago, the Korean equivalent of PBS ran a year-long 120 one hour episode bio-pic about Yi’s life. In the 1970s statues of Yi were ordered erected in every primary school in the country and a huge likeness of him “defends” the presidential home in downtown Seoul. Shrines and memorials to his exploits dot the South Korean countryside, particularly near the coast.
Last summer I had the good fortune to participate in an international conference on the so-called Imjin War (1592-1598) held in the city of Tongyong, South Korea. I was one of only a handful of Western scholars invited to the conference, the majority being Korean and Japanese scholars. Although this was one of the most important and traumatic events in Korean history, probably more devastating than even the Korean War of the 1950s, very few Westerners know much about it. The war started because the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), who had risen from peasant beginnings to become the overlord and unifier of Japan, desired to extend his sway over the entire world as he knew it. This meant he needed to conquer China and eventually India. Because Korea was the shortest route to China from Japan and the Japanese did not have much of a navy at the time, Hideyoshi asked the king of Korea to allow his troops free passage to China. The king refused on the grounds that China and Korea had always been close neighbors on good terms and because he rightly did not trust the Japanese. So Korea became the first target and Hideyoshi assembled a vast host of over 150,000 to assail Korea in the spring of 1592, the year designated Imjin, or the year of the black water dragon, in the traditional Korean calendar.
Korea’s greatest hero in this national tragedy was a military officer named Yi Sunsin (1545-1598). It is impossible to overstate the importance of Admiral Yi for the Korean people. Virtually everything about Yi Sunsin is larger than life. He was a great archer, a skilled and innovative naval commander, and a dutiful son. He was repeatedly impeached and cashiered by jealous political rivals, only to return victorious. In one battle he is said to have destroyed a Japanese fleet of over 140 ships with only a dozen of his own redoubtable ironclad turtleboats as they came to be called. He even died in his final climatic battle, allegedly telling his nephew to keep his death a secret until the battle ended. It’s fair to say that his legend has only grown over the past four hundred years. Two years ago, the Korean equivalent of PBS ran a year-long 120 one hour episode bio-pic about Yi’s life. In the 1970s statues of Yi were ordered erected in every primary school in the country and a huge likeness of him “defends” the presidential home in downtown Seoul. Shrines and memorials to his exploits dot the South Korean countryside, particularly near the coast.
# posted by Grant Jones @ 2:21 PM 
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Interesting post. I love history, but I haven't studied Oriental history much. I'll be coming back to your blog. Also, Douglas MacArthur is probably my favorite historical person; I read the biography American Caesar by William Manchester some time back and gained a newfound appreciation for him.
You might also try D. Clayton James three volume biography of MacArthur "The Years of MacArthur." He is more critical than Manchester, but it is excellent.
Good, succinct history lesson on a part of the world I know very little about. Thanks.
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: Monday, May 07, 2007 4:06:00 PM
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