Admiral Yi Sun-sin and the Turtle Ships

When Japan invaded Korea in 1592, the Korean forces were unprepared for Japan's troops. The Korean navy, however, was a different story. Commanding Admiral Yi Sun-sin repeatedly defeated the Japanese. But was it enough to end the war? Tune in to find out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm Debline A Chuck reporting. And
if you remember, we talked about shipwrecks a little bit
at the beginning of the summer, and after we covered them,

(00:22):
including the ironclad Civil War era Monitor, we started to
get some suggestions that really surprised me. They were suggestions
for sixteenth century Korean history. So I've got to ask
why would a civil warship have called to mind sixteenth
century Korea? And that's because Korea is famous for its

(00:42):
turtle ships, which are considered by some to be the
first ironclads. And the turtle ships were used long long
before the Monitor Mary Mack showed down about two fifty
years before, and they were used to great effect to
defensively against Japan, makeing them quite famous in Korea but
maybe not so well known outside of that country. Yeah,

(01:05):
but since it's usually more interesting when a military story
is attached to an individual, we were especially one over
when listeners like Suwan and Will told us about the
famous commander of these fire breathing turtle ships, Admiral Ye
Sun Sin and national hero, sometimes called Korea's Admiral Lord Nelson,
although like the Turtleships, Ye came along before Nelson did. Yeah,

(01:26):
this kind of reminds me of the Joan of Art
comparisons and and things like that, when people are are
compared to a Western figure who lived long after. Yeah,
that's a great point. But still if it if it
helps anybody sort of give a comparison for what this
guy was like, then I'm all for it. Yes, But
before we talk about Admiral Yee, we have to discuss
his opponent, the daimyo warrior who unified Japan and then

(01:50):
went looking for a little bit more. Yeah, So backtracking
a little bit here, Japan in the sixteenth century was
just a mess of civil wars between these powerful daimio factions,
so local warlords who had their own armies and like
to fight a lot. So born a peasant. This guy
named Toya told me, Hideyoshi got involved in these wars

(02:13):
and pretty quickly rose to the position of henchman for
Oda Nobunaga, who was a general who eventually deposed the Showgun.
And when Nobunaga died, Hideyoshi succeeded him. Even though he
couldn't claim the title of shogun for himself because of
his low birth status. Nevertheless, he was ostensibly ruling to

(02:36):
Pan or at least controlling the military aspects of the country,
and he went about unifying it too, getting all of
those daimio warlords to fall in line. It was just
this huge meteoric rise for this kind of obscure warrior. Initially, Yeah,
so once you've unified your country, what's one great way

(02:57):
to keep it together? In this case, it was fighting
someone else Hedeo. She believed that he was destined to
rule an enormous empire, starting by conquering China, of course,
and eventually extending into the Philippines. Unfortunately for Korea it
was in the way of all this. It was in
the way of his plan. Japan's invasion didn't start right
away though at first Hedo she sent on voice to

(03:18):
suggest renewed relations between Japan and Korea. Things between the
two countries had been pretty strained in the past century
due to ceaseless Japanese pirate attacks against Korean port cities.
So they chose Sun dynasty, and Korea was really interested
in these opening talks. They were like, okay, if you
guys want to work it out, well, we'll hear what
you have to say. But the request for relations came

(03:38):
with a condition, and that condition was that the Koreans
should let the Japanese army pass through on their way
to China. But since Korea was a Chinese client state,
this was obviously an unacceptable arrangement. Yeah, they weren't going
to go lose their ally China, so no dice with
this Japanese plan. Still, though, Korea's king was a little

(03:59):
bit worried that there might be some kind of deception
going on, that Korea might be in danger itself, and
so he sent his own envoice to Japan to try
to figure out what Hideyoshi was really up to. And
those envoys came back with conflicting reports something nothing's going on,
others saying yeah, he's going to attack. But ultimately the
king decided to make no military preparations for a Japanese invasion.

(04:24):
That turned out to be a really bad move because
Hideyoshi was getting ready and on March Japanese troops made landfall,
which started the Engine War eventually known as the Seven
Year War, and the capital city, which is now of
course known to US as Soul fell only twenty days later.

(04:46):
So just a remarkably fast victory, it seemed for Japan.
And it wasn't just that the Korean troops were unprepared, though,
that they hadn't expected this Japanese attack, and that they
were outnumbered. The Japanese army's skill and firepower really better too,
That's true. The Japanese had well trained soldiers. Again, remember

(05:07):
all these civil wars that they had that we told
you about earlier, and they were led by experienced daimyos.
They had state of the art weapons too. They had
match luck firearms, while the Koreans had mostly bows and
arrows plus some cannons. But as quickly as the Korean
interior fell, the Japanese were in for a bit of
a surprise when it came to the navy. So enter

(05:29):
Admiral Yee, who had been born in against the wishes
of his illustrious but impoverished family, he had decided to
pursue a military career rather than a literary one. I've
never heard of a family encouraging someone to take an
English major, Young Ye exactly, So just a note here.
This was kind of ironic since he's written accounts and

(05:51):
two thousand, five thirty nine diary entries are some of
the best sources historians have of this period. That we
did go on to become a literary figure year, but
he pursued the military career more adamantly, and at age
twenty eight, he took the military service exam. This just
blows me away. He broke his leg during the test.
It had a horseback riding portion, and instead of calling

(06:14):
it quicks there, he amazed everyone by getting up on
the other leg and binding the break with a branch
and continuing the test. I guess he didn't pass, though,
because it wasn't until four years later that he passed
the service exam, And his career didn't exactly take off either.
He wasn't a brown noser, and he didn't exactly court favors,

(06:37):
and he was actually twice discharged because of false accusations
against him. Eventually, though, his hard work and his skill
got him a promotion and he was appointed the left
Navy Commander of the Chola Province in charge of protecting
Korea's southwest coast. And you'll see some variation in that.

(06:58):
Sometimes he's the Navy commander of the left Chola province. Um,
I'm not sure about that one. It seems more likely
that you'd have a left navy commander than a left province.
It sounds strange to refer to the left side of something,
but he can let us know about that though, if
you want to. He really got the chance to shine
in this position. It was pirates central in this area,

(07:19):
so he started to build up his navy. He established
a new administrative system, better weapons, better discipline, and most famously,
better ships. Though he's often credited with their creation, Korea
had turtle ships, those ships we mentioned earlier, or Kobukson
before Admiral Ye. It's hard to know exactly what they
were like, though there are reconstructions based on best guesses.

(07:42):
We really just have Admiral Ye in one of his
nephew's descriptions of them, but basically this is what they
were like. They were multi decked vessels with two or
three floors covered by a wooden roof curved like a
turtle's back, so their flat bottoms meant that they could
turn on a dime, and the ships could switch between sales,
which were usually lower during battle or oarsmen. Oarsmen were

(08:04):
on the lower level and fighters would be above. Yeah,
and he worked to fortify the existing turtle design, so
he armed them to the teeth with cannons and bombs
and portholes for flaming arrows to be shot out of.
He placed dragon heads on the prows of the ships,
and this is just awesome. A cannon ball could be

(08:24):
fired through the dragon's mouth or sulfur smoke to sort
of obscure the movements and just to look really scary.
A lot of this was kind of an intimidation game.
He reduced the number of oarsmen from twenty to sixteen,
and he also lined the wooden roof with iron spikes
so that when enemy soldiers tried to board the ship

(08:47):
they would get a spike through the foot. Because they'd
be covered during battle with with matts, you wouldn't know
that they were going to be all those spikes on board. Um,
no hot bombs onto the Turtle ships. And some also
suggest that he arm heard the ships with iron plates,
the iron plates on the side on the turtle shell,
and that would of course make them the first iron clouds.

(09:08):
But Hidie Holts, in an article for Naval History Rights,
that the contemporary evidence for this is pretty slim. Definitely
have the spikes, maybe not so much the iron plates.
Here's a description of this from Ye's own diary. He says,
I had a turtleship specially built with a dragon's head,
from whose mouth we could fire our cannons, and with
iron spikes on its back to pierce the enemy's feet

(09:30):
when they tried to board. Because it is in the
shape of a turtle, our men can look from inside,
but the enemy cannot look in from the outside. It
moves so swiftly that it can plunge into the midst
of even many hundreds of enemy vessels in any weather,
to attack them with cannonballs and flamethrowers. And that was
the truth. He really could just kind of sneak in
there with these ships. But the turtle ships, despite being powerful,

(09:55):
were especially effective in the hands of Ea. He knew
how to use them. And the first major naval engagement
took place May seventh through eight at oak Po, and
Admiral Ye used this technique where he sort of enveloped
the Japanese who were busy raiding the town and we're
a little late coming back to their boats. And that

(10:16):
technique he eventually developed into something called the stork swing
or crane formation, just kind of coming around like a
v to to get the enemy from both sides, and
he ended up destroying twenty six out of fifty Japanese
ships on the first day alone of fighting there. To
contrast with that, only one Korean sailor was wounded, supposedly

(10:38):
minorly wounded, so a huge success for the first naval engagement,
and those successes just continued. It was the first of
ten major naval victories that year. In the next five battles,
for example, the Japanese lost eighty three ships to Korea's
eleven sailors. The two battles after that, which took place
at hunts On Island, resulted in a Japanese loss of

(11:00):
one hundred and one ships to Korea's nineteen men. Then
next came the Battle of pussin Po, where Admiral Ye
and his fleet sank a hundred ships. So the tenth
victory earned him a promotion. Finally, after all of this,
he got promoted to Supreme Naval Commander of the three
Southern Provinces. So it's important here to understand something about

(11:22):
the Japanese navy, though it tells us why it fared
so poorly, but also about Admiral Ye's naval genius. We're
going to make some excuses here. Basically, the Japanese navy
was mustered on the command of the daimios, so they'd
get an order to raise a certain number of men
and provide a certain number of ships, and then carry
that order out, and you'd end up with a motley

(11:45):
crew of men and of ships, a bunch of different ships.
Not all of them would be war ready. For instance,
some of them were tiny and they had these little square,
hard to maneuver sales. Some required massive numbers of oarsmen,
so instead of having your guys fighting, you have all
these dudes below deck rowing. And then some were large,
but they weren't very well armed because they were built

(12:07):
of lighter wood than the Koreans used. And then finally,
some would just corrode because they had iron fittings and
the Koreans used wooden nails instead, which supposedly would expand
in the water to make the ship even tighter and
stronger instead of corroding. So yeah, definitely a problem here

(12:28):
with the ships, but also a problem with the men, because,
as we keep mentioning all that Civil War land combat
made really strong land fighters out and to hand. The Japanese, yeah,
so they were really more experienced fighting in that style,
and their preferred technique for naval battles was to board
an enemy ship and just start fighting just like you

(12:51):
were on land. So it was a really important move
that Admiral Ye avoided this. He would keep the Japanese
off of his ships and keep his men away from
that deadly hand to hand combat both with the Spikes
and the Turtle ships, but also that great canon power
just being able to stay far enough away from the
Japanese ships that they couldn't board the Korean ones. To

(13:15):
add to matters, the Japanese navy was controlled by several
senior officers who instead of really working together, they really
all each individually wanted glory rather than cooperation. So there
wasn't one commander over them. It was all master plan. Yeah,
it was several commanders fighting to just sort of be
the best one. Too many equals. So unfortunately for the Japanese, though,

(13:36):
their invasion really did require a certain amount of naval
success because the troops who had so easily taken over
the countryside and Soul really needed supply and communication lines,
and they were hoping to get those via boat. So
Admiral He and his navy put an end to both
of those, and you end up with all these Japanese

(13:58):
troops who are ice added without their their lines. So,
with those poor supply lines, a growing Korean guerilla movement
in the countryside, and the eventual involvement of the Chinese
Ming Army as a Korean ally, the Japanese were eventually
forced to a stalemate and they had to withdraw from
most of Korea in fifteen. But when peace talks started

(14:20):
between Japan and China excluding Korea, now Hiteo she thought
he had won. For some reason, he made outrageous demands
of China, but somehow, maybe because of court intrigue. Maybe
you know more about that, Sarah. It's believed to have
been court intrigue that just sort of threw his demands
out the window. They never made it to the Ming Emperor,
and instead the emperor ended up with a very different

(14:43):
peace proposal, and after a few years of delay, Chinese
emissaries returned to Japan with the Ming Emperor's reply to
this falsified treaty, and his reply was that Japan would
be recognized as a tributary state of China. So major
miscommunications here. Each side clearly thought that they had won.

(15:06):
Hideyoshi is furious and immediately it is back to war again.
Japan is invading Korea. The second invasion of Korea started
August seven, but this time around, the Japanese knew that
it would be best to get Admiral Ye out of
the way. So they had learned something from their experience
before and they were going to do something about it.

(15:27):
So a Japanese double agent planted information in the Korean
court about a Japanese attack. Admiral Lee was ordered to
a specific attack location based on this information that he
refused to go. So why did he refuse to go? Well,
for one thing, he was suspicious of foul play, so
he was pretty smart here, and he knew that the
area was filled with sunken rock, so he knew it

(15:49):
would be dangerous for his men. So King Sunjo wasn't
very happy about this, and he actually had Admiral Ye
tortured and then even ordered his execution as a trader
and a coward, only backing down at the suggestion of
his advisors. Pointed out that this man was a great
Korean hero and had helped them defeat or at least
get rid of the Japanese last around. So instead he

(16:12):
was still punished, but in a different way. He was
demoted to a common soldier and replaced by one Kion
who had a questionable naval record. So, sure enough, the
next Korean naval engagement was a total disaster. One Kon
took the entire Korean navy out to meet a Japanese
armada of five hundred to one thousand ships while a
storm was approaching and his's men were exhausted and tired too.

(16:34):
Twenty of their ships were sunk before the Koreans could
withdraw to a nearby island, which unfortunately was filled with
Japanese troops, so four hundred Koreans were killed. The Japanese
then attacked again and destroyed two hundred more ships, which
basically helped them secure lines in the southern part of
the country get those supply lines finally, So after this

(16:55):
total disaster, he got his old job back. It's lucky
for Korea that he was not actually executed. He was
able to come back to work and he started building
up the remaining battered ships, and after fighting off a
few attacks with this tiny fleet, he set up a
new home base on an island separated from the mainland

(17:15):
by the Raging Meong Nyong Strait, which is also known
as the Roaring Channel, and this was really the only
advantage he could rely on. He knew that this would
be an incredibly difficult channel or straight to cross, and
that he would have some defense there for his tiny,
tiny fleet that was left. So there in October, he

(17:39):
took on one hundred and thirty three Japanese ships with
his twelve remaining ships and lured them into that rapid
straight before attacking them with heavy cannon fire so the
Japanese couldn't retreat, they couldn't get out of the way,
and thirty one of their ships sank before the fleet
could finally escape from the straight retreat and it was

(18:00):
stunning victory for Admiral Yee and Korea, and it's considered
one of the most impressive naval victories ever, even though
once again it's probably not too well known outside of
Korea or outside of naval historian circles. So the defeat
was bad news for the Japanese too. It meant that
they couldn't resupply their army that was headed towards Seoul.

(18:23):
And it was also demoralizing. I mean, how embarrassed to
be beaten by this fleet of twelve ships um so devastatingly.
So by early FI reinforcements from Ming, China helped restore
the Korean Navy, and this was another point in Admiral
yeast favor. He worked really well with his main counterpart.
The Japanese land forces couldn't survive without their supply lines,

(18:46):
partly because they had wrecked the countryside so badly the
first go round, So they began a slow retreat, hoping
to hold onto at least some of their gains. But
when Hideo She died in September fIF and the Japanese
infighting began again, the withdrawal was sped up. So during
the Nord Young Sea Battle in December, which was the
last naval battle to evacuate Japanese troops, Admiral Lye was

(19:10):
killed by stray bullet, which I just think is so yeah, sad,
after he survived all those battles and almost secured the
war is over, and then he's killed. You know, he'd
probably get like a nice house or something for his trouble.
I don't know, some kind of a war, I hope,
so at least a break a vacation. So yeah, that's

(19:31):
that's too bad. But we have one more sort of
theoretical thing to discuss a little bit. We mentioned how
he holds this article for naval history earlier on, and
there's one more interesting point to race. She writes that
military historians like to debate which is more important in
determining the outcome of an armed conflict, technology or genius,

(19:53):
and the story of Admiral Ye really makes the case
for both, because there is technology the turtle ships, and
there's genius Admiral Ye, of course, but this case is
especially interesting because we have that failed one Keion interlude
where the replacement admiral has the same ships, he has
the same canons, he has the same men, but he

(20:15):
makes poor decisions and allowed the Japanese within range so
they could board and fight man to man like they
like to. He attacked in unfavorable conditions, whereas Ye, on
the other hand, won every single one of his naval battles,
even when he had a fleet of twelve ships and
there were no turtle ships included. So I kind of

(20:35):
like this speculation, and I guess that's what military historians
really like to do, to look for these case studies
to illustrate their arguments. But I mean, I think it
does make a good case for for both, but maybe
suggest that in in this case, at least you can
have technology, but unless you have genius too, it's not
going to do you much good. Yeah, Japan would have

(20:57):
conquered Korean possibly gone on from there to Nina and
the Philippines, where they would have been up against none
other than the naval power of Spain fresh off its
Armada defeat if it hadn't been for Ye. Well, and
that's kind of a that's kind of a history path
less traveled, I guess speculation, Yes, speculative disclaimer here exactly. So, um,

(21:20):
you know, let us know if if you have any
thoughts on that, what what that alternate history might have
been like. And I guess that's probably a good time
to go ahead and transition to listener mail. So our
first item for discussion is actually a listener mill present.
And I was amazed when I opened a box to

(21:45):
find a real beaver king inside. I mean, how how
can we describe them to Bluina. He is fuzzy and adorable.
He wears a cloak, like a plaid cloak like the crown.
Names Strang version of the Beaver King has a crown,
oh in. My favorite part is that he has a
acorn topped scepter, like a real acorn on top, and

(22:07):
he has a beaver teeth. He's really cute. So we
got that from Colleen and she wrote a little note
to include with his majesty. She said, this thank you
note is long overdo. However, it took quite some time
to wrangle the real King of Beaver Island and get
him into the box. Although my mom and I thoroughly
enjoyed your podcast and learning more about my grandfather's boyhood home,

(22:31):
the little guy in close with a bit miffed that
James Strang's claim to his throne was brought up again.
So I like that, and we'll try to not mention
James Strang around this new beat. And I'm just so glad.
That's what it was. When Sarah texted me because I
was out of the office and said we got a
real King of Beaver Island, and I was like, what

(22:54):
could she be talking about? So it's a delightful surprise
to come back too. I was here and on a
Friday afternoon, and not too many people were around, and
I just wanted to show it to somebody. I went
around like looking for for anyone who could appreciate it,
who could appreciate the real King of Beaver Island. So
thank you very much to Colleen and to your mother.

(23:15):
We will take good care of him, and we'll we'll
keep mentions of James Strang to a minimum. Our next
email comes from Jennifer and she wrote, I've been hooked
on your podcast for a few months now and listen
for hours on end while shooting in archaeological shovel test.
She also describes that as GPS thing quote, if that's

(23:37):
even a word. She goes on to say, my coworkers
always know where I am by keeping an ear open
for your podcast. I have my iPod on speaker to
alert bears to my presence. We have to address that
really quick. I'm kind of amazed that we are like
audio bear spray. Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm glad. I'm

(23:59):
glad that our voices are so loud and startling us
to keep the bears away. I think if we ever go,
I don't know, hiking in this area or something. The
bears will hear us. That would be like, oh my god,
it's one of them again. You know, they never stopped
talking um and then we get eaten, you know, like
they would take revenge on us or something. Well, hopefully

(24:21):
it's just to alert bears to to her presence and
they don't dislike us. The bears don't dislike us. But
Jennifer goes on to write on a controversial archaeological theme,
have you considered researching that Kensington runestone? It engenders endless
conversations and stories and potential bouts of fisticuffs and archaeological

(24:41):
and geological community. So thank you Jennifer for your archaeological
controversy suggestion, and um be aware of the bears. So
if you have any more fisticuffs inducing ideas for us,
please email us our Addresses History podcast at how stuff
we dot com or you can look us up on

(25:02):
Facebook or on Twitter at Myston History. And if you
want to learn a little bit more about chip wrecks,
which is loosely related to what we talked about today,
you can look up an article called how to Survive
a shipwreck on our homepage by visiting www dock how
stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our

(25:23):
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