a korean badass
korea has never really been a military power, despite being nestled geographically amongst some very militaristic and warlike nations. and it saddens me to report that when it comes to a military hero, well, there really aren’t that many from this ancient yet small country.
there are some good reasons for this.
i blame confucianism for this, since korea has readily embraced this concept, the only exulted class in korean society have been scholars and state officials. indeed, throughout much of korea’s history, those who wielded swords or swung an axe, not to mention anyone who did physical labor was generally looked down upon. pen is mightier than the sword, the saying goes, but in korea, well, there were practically no swords.
thus, historically, when larger and more powerful nations threatened korea, the conversation invariably went thus:
big powerful country: hey, korea, so we thought about it, and we think we’re going to come and rape and pillage and generally, you know, destroy you. nothing personal. but seeing as how you guys pretty much are interested in being bookworms, well, you’d be a great country for us to take over.
korea: oh, yes. yes, we see that you have uh… well, rather large and mean looking army. yep, you’d crush us like an ant. hey, how about this? instead of you know, you coming in and killing our folks and carrying off our treasure, we’ll save you the trouble and send you whatever you like to your country, gold, pottery, people, you know, things like that.
big powerful country: hm. well, it would save us the trouble, i suppose. alright, then every year, send us this here laundry list of stuff we think are pretty spiffy. don’t skimp on the pretty girls and boys.
korea: thanks. we’ll get back to our internal bickering and writing flowery prose, then.
what korea has been lacking in sheer number of military legend, however, is more than made up by perhaps the greatest admiral the world has ever seen. i am talking about yi sun sin[soon shin]이순신.
he began his career as an army officer in the northern border, protecting korea(then called “josun” against a bunch of invaders called the jurchens. he was a very shrewd and successful officer, scoring many victories against the nomad horde. for his efforts, he was made an admiral to build up the fledgling navy of the jeolla province to the southern coast of korea.
i can see the line of thinking of the officials(the flowery prose guys) who made yi sun sin an admiral. “hey, he’s pretty good at ass kicking on land, so let’s make him a navy admiral. army, navy, what’s the diff?” fortunately for admiral yi, he didn’t care where he did his ass kicking, and he would prove them correct.
japanese annexation of korea of 1910 isn’t the first time the japanese have invaded the korean peninsula. in 1592, toyotomi hideyoshi, after finally unifying the whole of japan through his use of loyal samurai and portugese guns, sent an envoy to korea.
japan: hey, there, korea, how are ya? how’s that kimchi production going? yeah, we love that stuff too. anyway, since we’re neighbors and all, we thought we’d axe you a question.. you know china? yeah, those guys have all sorts of good stuff laying around, and you know, we wouldn’t mind getting at some of that silk and orange chicken.
korea:…go on…
japan: yeah, so anyway, we’ve got all these restless samurai dudes just itching to start a fight, and well, we think china’s ripe for picking. the thing is, you guys are smack dab in the middle between us and the pandas, and we’d like to kinda sorta march through your land and go whack the ming dynasty.
korea: uh,
japan: we’ll just be going through! really! no torching, no killing, no nothing. howabout it?
korea: well, mings are our buddies, and while we kind of like you too, sorry, no… we’ll pass.
japan: we have swords and guns and sharp sticks. and like george bush says, “you’re either with us or against us.”
korea: (thinking privately) “ming will come and save us”. sorry japan. do your worst.
and worst they did, and korean defense crumbled like so much roquefort cheese. and koreans paid a terrible price for refusing to cooperate with the japanese on a joint assault on the chinese. the japanese set up a forward base on the peninsula itself, and the king being a korean king he is, fled his palace as japanese horde wreaked havoc on the land.
admiral yi, however, predicted such war with japan would come, and had been fortifying his navy to do battle. the naval tactics of the day was of the “draw next to the enemy ship, board, and slaughter in hand to hand comabt” variety, which japan excelled at. they have those pointy sticks. yi, realizing this, devised his newly built ships with much heavier cannons that outranged and outgunned his enemy’s, thus nullifying the japanese navy’s advantage.
then he went on to create the coolest looking ship yet, the “turtle ship” [거북선]with his naval architect. the turtleship was effectively the world’s first iron clad warship, some hundreds years before the american civil war vessels monitor and css virginia.
the ship had a head of a dragon, where guns and smokescreen emitter was placed, and it being a multiple decked ship, it had separate levels for combat rowers and fighting sailors. the ship’s top was covered with metal plates and topped with sharp metal spikes, and any foolio that jumped to board the ship was probably skewered real good. the ship was mainly used as a charging and ramming vessel, used to dive headlong into the enemy fleet and cause confusion and chaos, afterwards which the rest of the korean navy moved in to finish the job.
it’s remarkable to note that he’s never lost a battle, and most likely single handedly won the war between japan and korea. in one battle in which he returned to after serving a prison sentence as well as being tortured and being stripped of admiralty for being accused as a traitor by a jealous faction within the king’s court, he takes what’s left of the navy, 12 battleships to do battle against japan’s fleet of 333 ships and wins a decisive battle, putting 120 japanese battleships out of commision, while losing not one of his own ships. what a badass.
he is remembered as one of korea’s greatest heroes, and a title later conferred to him reads “lord of loyalty and chivalry”, and is the third highest military honor. what i want to know is, who are the other two guys that rank higher in korea?
no higher compliment to his legacy exists than when the imperial japanese navy admiral (whose navy went on to defeat the vaunted russian navy) sato tetsutaro declared in 1908 that admiral yi is a greater admiral than even lord nelson of england and called him the “master of naval tactics”.
sato does mention that it’s unfortunate that admiral yi was born in korea(josun) so his exploits are obscure to most people. but for the country as a whole, they were most fortunate to have had such a leader in a dire time. toyotomi hideyoshi never realized his goal of invading the ming china nor conquering korea, and died. shortly after toyotomi’s death, the japanese withdrew from korea, not to return until almost 300 years later. but that’s another story.
November 28th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
you can also watch the korean period drama for the story. its pretty accurate and very entertaining. you can’t make this shit up.
February 12th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
[…] I wrote about Korea’s baddest ass (I assume that’s a proper superlative of “bad-ass”) Yi Sun Shin a while back. What I didn’t know at the time was that he had a sword that was nearly 180 cm in length (almost six and a half feet!) […]