Who won the Battle of Myeongnyang?
Joseon Korea won. On the 16th day of the ninth lunar month of 1597, usually given as 26 October, Admiral Yi Sun-sin held the Myeongnyang strait with 13 warships against a Japanese fleet he counted at 133 ships, destroying 31 by his own record. He then withdrew north, so historians still debate how decisive the victory was.1
In 1597 a Korean admiral just out of prison held a narrow, roaring tidal channel with 13 warships against a far larger Japanese fleet. The Battle of Myeongnyang, in the Uldolmok strait off Jindo island, is the best-known episode of the Imjin War in Korea; in Japan it is a minor episode, and some Japanese scholars read its result differently.2
Part of Battles of Korea · Before: Hansan Island, 1592 · Next: Noryang, 1598
Background: Hideyoshi's second invasion
The war began in 1592, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi sent his armies into Korea. In 1597 Japan invaded again, the campaign Koreans call the Jeongyu War. Early in 1597 Yi Sun-sin, victor of many sea fights in the first invasion, was accused, removed from command and imprisoned. Mark Peterson writes that he was falsely accused of desertion after refusing to chase a fleet he believed was a trap, and was jailed and tortured.3
Disaster at Chilcheollyang
His replacement, Won Gyun, was crushed in the seventh lunar month of 1597, at Dadaepo and then at Chilcheollyang. The Japanese historians Kasaya Kazuhiko and Kuroda Keiichi, quoted by Ogawa Takaaki, count more than 160 ships lost, and Won Gyun, as Peterson notes, lost his life. Only Bae Seol escaped, with 12 warships.4
"I still have 12 ships"
The court restored Yi as naval commander in the same month. The Korea Herald writes that King Seonjo judged the navy could no longer win, and Peterson that Yi was ordered to give up the fleet and fight on land. Korean memory keeps his answer as "I still have 12 ships" (Peterson) or "we still have 12 ships left" (Korea Herald). A thirteenth warship joined later: a civilian brought it, says the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, while Peterson says it was quickly repaired.5
The fleets and their commanders
Yi's ships were panokseon, heavy oared warships armed with cannon, a generation after oared fleets had fought at Lepanto; MediaToday notes that no record places a turtle ship at Myeongnyang, since all had burned at Chilcheollyang, though some Japanese writers assumed otherwise. Refugee boats from the coast waited behind his line; a tradition recorded by the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture adds that about a hundred were disguised as warships, and Seki Shuichi, a Japanese historian quoted by Ogawa, also describes fishing boats disguised as warships.6
The Japanese numbers are the most disputed figure. Yi's war diary, the Nanjung Ilgi, counts 133 ships entering the strait. The revised Veritable Records of King Seonjo and Yu Seong-ryong's memoir Jingbirok speak of more than 200, and some modern historians, Korean and Japanese, give 330 or more, as does the 2014 film. The gap may lie in ships that stayed outside the narrows: the Todo family record, quoted by Ogawa, says the big ships could not pass, so medium-sized sekibune attacked.7
Todo Takatora led the Japanese, with the daimyo Kurushima Michifusa and the inspector Mori Takamasa; some accounts add Kato Yoshiaki and Wakisaka Yasuharu, though a 1942 Japanese history quoted by Ogawa doubted Kato was there.8
The roaring strait
Both Myeongnyang and Uldolmok refer to the roar of the current racing through the narrows at the turn of the tide. A 2002 Korean study puts the channel at about 290 meters wide at its narrowest and 1,700 meters long. Like the Greeks at Salamis, Yi chose a place where a larger fleet could not bring its numbers to bear. Kim Hyun-jong's 2015 astronomical tide reconstruction has the current running north-west at up to about 8.3 knots in the morning, slack near 12:48, then south-east at up to about 9.9 knots.9
The battle
On the 15th day of the ninth lunar month Yi moved from Byeokpajin on Jindo to Usuyeong on the mainland shore, so as not to fight with the strait at his back. Early on the 16th the Japanese came through the channel and Yi formed a single line across the water. For a time his flagship fought almost alone while other captains hung back, until he signaled An Wi and Kim Eung-ham forward.10
Then Junsa, a Japanese defector, recognized a man in a red brocade robe in the water as the commander Madashi. Yi had the body hooked aboard and cut up and the head displayed, which by Korean accounts shook the attackers. Joseon ships pressed in with cannon and fire arrows; Yi's diary records 31 Japanese ships destroyed before the rest drew off. Korean accounts stress that the turn of the current to the south-east now worked against the Japanese.11
Why did Yi Sun-sin win at Myeongnyang?
Yi won because he fought where numbers counted for little. The narrow, fast Myeongnyang strait let only part of the Japanese fleet engage at once, his heavy cannon-armed panokseon outmatched the medium ships sent against him, and the turn of the current and the death of a Japanese commander broke the attack before it could overwhelm his line.
Casualties
No Joseon warship was lost; Peterson puts the Korean dead at about ten. Beyond the 31 ships in Yi's diary, there is no reliable count of Japanese losses. The Todo record says Kurushima and more than half of the senior retainers in the leading ships were killed or wounded, Mori Takamasa fell into the sea and was rescued, and Todo was wounded twice in the hand.12
The Korean side
The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture sees it as the victory that stopped the Japanese advance by sea toward the west coast and turned the war in Korea's favor; the Jindo encyclopedia stresses the part of local people and refugee boats. Koreans call it Myeongnyang daecheop, the great victory.13
The Japanese side
The Todo record shows commanders who, seeing 13 Korean ships, resolved to take them. It ends with the Korean ships, which knew the waters, catching the wind and slipping out of the narrows under sail, so the Japanese could not pursue. Many Japanese historians, among them Kitajima Manji, describe a defeat that cost Japan the daimyo Kurushima; Ogawa argues that since Yi withdrew and the Japanese fleet moved up the west coast, Japan won strategically.14
Aftermath: retreat to the north
Yi did not hold the strait. That night, his diary says, the current was too strong, the wind adverse and his fleet isolated, so he moved to Dangsa island, and over the next days sailed north to the Gogunsan islands. Japanese ships followed up the coast: Todo's men captured the scholar Kang Hang off Yeonggwang, which Ogawa takes as proof that the Japanese were not driven back.15
Korean historians answer that the Japanese plan to round Korea's south-western corner and sail north was frustrated, and the Japanese fleet soon fell back to the south coast. The war ended after Hideyoshi's death in 1598, and Yi was killed in its last sea battle at Noryang.16
Myths and debates: the iron chain and other stories
The best-known legend says Yi stretched iron chains across the strait to overturn Japanese ships. Yi's diary, Jingbirok and the Veritable Records are silent; the story rests on 18th-century writings and a 1914 family record of the commander Kim Eok-chu, and historians treat it as unproven. The man Yi's diary calls Madashi has long been identified with Kurushima Michifusa, but Ogawa notes another view that he was Kan Masakage, son of the sea lord Kan Michinaga.17
Even the date needs care: Korean records give the 16th day of the ninth lunar month, which Ogawa converts to 26 October 1597 and two Korean tide studies to 25 October.18
Memory and the battlefield today
In South Korea The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2014) drew 17.6 million viewers, the most-watched film in the country's history, according to the Korea Herald. Critics noted liberties such as an invented beheading on deck; in Japan it was released as Battle Ocean. Yi's statue stands at Gwanghwamun in Seoul.19
The Jindo encyclopedia lists victory monuments and a Yi Sun-sin historical park by the strait. In the Japanese histories of Hideyoshi's invasions that Ogawa surveys, Myeongnyang usually gets only a short passage, often noting Kurushima's death.20
