Battle of Myeongnyang

Battle of Myeongnyang
Part of the Imjin War
Date October 26 1597 (September 16 according to Chinese Lunar Calendar, September 13 according to Korean Lunar Calendar) Location Myeongnyang Strait, near Jindo Island Result Decisive Korean victory
Belligerents
Fleet of Toyotomi Hideyoshi	Korean navy
Commanders and leaders
Todo Takatora Kurushima Michifusa† Katō Yoshiaki Wakisaka Yasuharu	Yi Sunsin Kim Eokchu
Strength
133 warships	13 warships
Casualties and losses
31 ships sunk, 92 ships damaged, 8,000–12,000 deaths	No ships lost, 34 deaths

The Battle of Myeongnyang was a naval battle between Korean and Japanese forces during the Imjin War (1592–1597).

In the Battle of Myeongnyang, on October 26 1597, the Korean admiral Yi Sunsin fought the Japanese navy at sea in Myeongnyang Strait, near Jindo Island. He only had 13 ships, which was all that was left from Won Kyun's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Chilchonryang. Admiral Yi Sunsin held the strait from a fleet of 133 Japanese warships and 200 Japanese logistical support ships. Many Japanese ships were sunk or disabled during the battle and the Japanese were forced to retreat.

Prelude

Due to the fractious politics of the Joseon Dynasty court, Admiral Yi Sunsin was impeached and almost put to death. Yi was instead tortured and demoted to the position of a common soldier. Yi's rival, Admiral Won Kyun, took command of the Korean fleet, which under Yi's careful management had grown from 63 heavy battle ships to 166.

Won Kyun was an incompetent military commander who immediately began squandering the Korean Navy's strength through ill-conceived and half-hearted maneuvers against the Japanese naval base at Pusan. In the Battle of Chilchonryang, the Japanese navy, with Todo Takatora in overall command, outmaneuvered the ineptly led Korean navy and virtually wiped it out. Soon afterwards, the Japanese reinforced their garrisons in Pusan and various forts in the southern coast of Korea, and began the second invasion.

With the Korean Navy out of the picture, the Japanese believed that they now had access to the Yellow Sea and could resupply their troops through this sea route as they advanced northward. In the 1592 campaigns, Admiral Yi prevented the Japanese from resupplying their troops in this manner and kept their ships holed up at their main bases in Pusan Harbor.

The Battle

Admiral Yi Sunsin was reinstated as supreme commander of the regional navies after the incompetent Won Kyun lost most of the Korean fleet in the Battle of Chilchonryang. Yi only had 12 panokseon ships at his disposal, which had been saved by Bae Seol, a Korean officer who escaped early in the Chilchonryang battle. Later, another ship joined with Yi and his small fleet numbered 13.

The Myeongnyang Strait had very strong currents that flowed at approximately 10 knots, first in one direction, then in the opposite direction in three hour intervals. Admiral Yi decided to use this unique condition as a force multiplier. In the morning of the 26th of October, the Japanese surged into the strait on a favorable tide, and Admiral Yi was waiting for them at the opposite end, using the shadows of the hills to hide his ships. As the Japanese ships came close to the end of the strait, Admiral Yi ordered his 13 ships to come out of the shelter of the hillside and form for attack.

Using double salvo cannon fire, the Koreans threw a fierce barrage of cannonballs that kept the Japanese at a distance. The narrowness of the strait prevented the Korean fleet from being flanked and the roughness of the tide prevented the Japanese from effectively enveloping them. Furthermore, the Koreans ships had flat bottoms that provided more stable and accurate cannon firing platforms then the Japanese ships, which had keel bottoms.

Floating in the water and moving towards the Koreans along the current was a body with the ornate uniform of a high ranking Japanese commander. The body was hauled aboard by Admiral Yi's men and identified as Kurushima Michifusa, the commander of the vanguard units of the Japanese fleet. Yi ordered Kurushima's head cut off and posted on the mast of his flagship. Upon seeing the head of their commander, Japanese morale began to crumble.

The tide soon shifted and the Japanese ships began to flow backwards and collide with each other, just as Admiral Yi had calculated. In the confusion, he ordered his ships to advance and press the attack, destroying ships out of all proportion to their relative numbers. The dense formation of Japanese ships crowded in the narrow strait made a perfect target for Korean cannon fire. The strong tides prevented those in the water from swimming to shore, and many Japanese sailors who abandoned sinking or damaged ships drowned. After most of their warships were sunk or disabled, the Japanese retreated.

This victory prevented the Japanese from entering the Yellow Sea and resupplying their army, which had recently fought against Korean and Chinese armies in the Battle of Chiksan and was headed towards the capital city of Hanseong (Seoul). With their supplies and reinforcements cut off via the sea route, the Japanese had to halt their advance and begin a general retreat.

Aftermath

The immediate results of the battle were a terrible shock to the entire Japanese command. It essentially meant that the Japanese land offensive could not continue. The Japanese hope to supply and reinforce their offensive through the Yellow Sea was no longer possible, and without being resupplied or relieved with fresh troops the morale of their soldiers declined. Korean and Chinese armies were able to regroup and push the Japanese back to their bases on the southern coast.

The victory also freed up the Chinese navy to join Admiral Yi in early 1598. After the destruction of most of the Korean fleet at Chilchonnyang, the Ming kept their navy stationed at important port cities to guard against Japanese pirate (Wokou) attack. The victory at Myeongnyang convinced the Ming government that they could ease security at their major ports and mobilize a fleet to Korea's aid.

The Japanese navy was heavily damaged. As previously mentioned, Kurushima was killed, and Todo Takatora (the hero of Chilchonryang) was seriously wounded. The Japanese navy retreated back to Pusan to rest and refit, and would not be in fighting condition for several months, buying time for the Koreans to rebuild their fleet and the Chinese to bring naval reinforcements.

Technical notes

The unique tidal conditions of the strait affected the Japanese in several ways. First of all, when attacking the Koreans, the Japanese had to do so in smaller groups. The Japanese could not advance all their ships into the channel at the same time. Although the current was moving north, it was still unpredictable, with isolated eddies and whirlpools, and sending a mass of ships into the channel would cause them to collide with each other. Secondly, when the current reversed and flowed south at the end of three hours, the Japanese ships not only drifted away, but could not maneuver and ended up colliding with each other. This is probably why there were so many damaged Japanese ships. Lastly, the rough currents of Myeongnyang made it difficult for anybody who fell overboard or jumped from sinking or burning ships to swim to shore. Most of the Japanese in the water ended up drowning.

Korean panokseon ships did not have as many problems with control because they had a flat bottom, which by principle is more stable in rough waters. They also had a few months to train their crews to adjust to the currents of Myeongnyang strait.

It is probable that the Battle of Myeongnyang is the closest naval version of the Battle of Agincourt, where special environmental features of the battlefield (deep mud, forests protecting the English flanks and a gentle slope that bunched the French men-at-arms up and made most of them unable to fight as the rear ranks crowded them in) became the force multiplier necessary for a vastly outnumbered English force to defeat a much larger and better equipped French force.

Contrary to popular belief, there were no turtle ships present for the battle. At most, Admiral Yi probably had 2 to 6 turtle ships at any one given time and they were all lost during the Battle of Chilchonryang. The thirteen ships that Yi had were most likely panokseons.

References

• Hawley, Samuel 2005 The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China. Republic of Korea and U.S.A.: Co-Published by The Royal Asiatic Society and The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
• Turnbull, Stephen 2002 Samurai Invasion: Japan's Korean War. Great Britain: Cassell & Co.
• Sohn, Pow Key (edited by) 1977 Nanjung Ilgi: War Diary of Admiral Yi Sun-Shin. Republic of Korea: Yonsei University Press.
• The Battle of Myeongnyang (in Korean)

See also

• List of Korea-related topics
• History of Korea
• Joseon Dynasty