Authors: Samuel Hawley
A month and a half of tenuous truce ensued, smoothed by a series of messages passed between the Ming and Japanese camps. Communi
cation not surprisingly was lightest at the eastern end of the Japanese perimeter, Kato Kiyomasa’s fortress at Tosan, for Kato was under the least amount of pressure. The Ming forces opposing him, the East Route Army under General Ma Gui, were encamped well to the north in the vicinity of Kyongju, and were giving no indications of a desire to attack. The allied navy, meanwhile, was based more than two hundred kilometers to the west, leaving the sea route open for the passage of his ships. Throughout the month of November and into December Kato was thus able to send horses and excess supplies back to Japan, together with some of his men, all without fear of enemy interference.
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The situation was very different for Kato’s colleagues at the opposite end of the fortress chain. At his Waegyo fortress, Konishi Yukinaga was hemmed in from landward by Liu Ting’s West Route Army, encamped at the town of
Sunchon a few kilometers north, and from seaward by the allied navy under Yi Sun-sin and Chen Lin. It was thus imperative for Konishi to reach some sort of understanding with the enemy before making any attempt to board his ships and leave. This was easily done with Liu Ting. Liu, anxious to avoid further bloodshed now that the war in his opinion was won,
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proved receptive to the messages and gifts that Konishi dispatched to his camp. He would make no move against Waegyo until after the Japanese had completed their withdrawal.
The Koreans of course were not happy about this. They wanted more than to see the Japanese quietly leave their country and the war brought to an end. They were after revenge—revenge for the unprovoked aggression that had devastated their nation after nearly seven years of war. Their army, however, was not powerful enough for the task; without the aid of General Liu’s ground troops there was little they could do. What the Koreans did have, however, was a powerful navy under Yi Sun-sin, the one native force that had proved itself capable of taking on and defeating the otherwise unbeatable Japanese. Commander Yi had no intention of allowing the Japanese to leave the peninsula without a fight, and for the moment at least, Admiral Chen Lin seemed to agree.
Upon receiving news on December 5 that Konishi Yukinaga would soon be evacuating his fortress and attempting to return to
Japan, Yi Sun-sin and Chen Lin once again led their combined fleet north toward Waegyo, anchoring in the lee of a small island a few kilometers offshore and laying a blockade across the neck of Kwangyang Bay. If Konishi’s men attempted to board their ships and leave, two hundred or more Korean and Chinese warships would be there to attack them before they ever reached the open sea. Konishi was concerned, and also a little confused. Had this enemy flotilla arrived simply to observe his departure? Or would it attack when he put out to sea? The Japanese commander got his answer two days later, on December 10, when a squadron of ten ships that he presumably sent out to test the intentions of the allies was promptly attacked and driven back.
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This aggressive response led Konishi to believe that General Liu Ting had broken his word that he would allow the Japanese to evacuate in peace. He accordingly took two of the hostages Liu had sent him as evidence of his good faith, cut off their hands, and sent them back to the general’s Sunchon camp as a sign of his displeasure. Liu replied that any agreement existing between them applied only to his ground forces; he had no control over what was happening at sea.
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Konishi therefore found it necessary to approach Chen Lin with overtures of peace. The very next day he sent one of his captains to Chen’s camp under a flag of truce with presents of swords, two hogs, and two barrels of wine, together with a request that a way be opened so his forces could leave. More meetings took place on December 12 and again on the thirteenth, each accompanied by still more gifts.
Konishi’s diplomacy had its intended affect; by December 13 Chen Lin had expressed a willingness to comply. Winning over Chen, however, solved only part of the problem. There was also Yi Sun-sin to consider. Chen himself first tried to talk Yi into allowing the Japanese to withdraw without a fight. The Korean commander refused. “I cannot talk peace,” he said, “nor can I let a single enemy seed go home in peace.” When word of this reached Konishi, he sent a representative directly to Yi with the same gifts and entreaties he had given to Chen Lin—possibly on the assumption that the Korean commander resented being ordered about by Chen and would be more amenable if approached directly. If so he was mistaken. Yi sent the man packing.
Chen Lin now stepped in and attempted to resolve the situation by taking action of his own. He informed Yi that he was going to pull his ships out of the blockade and move east to
Namhae Island, to clear away the last remnants of enemy forces he said were still there. For Yi this was the last straw. Already angered by Chen’s truckling with Konishi, he now made it clear that he expected the Ming admiral to do his part in maintaining the blockade. Besides, Yi pointed out, the bulk of the Japanese garrison had already left Namhae. Most of the people still there were Koreans who had been taken prisoner and forced to work for the Japanese. Chen brushed this aside. They collaborated with the enemy, he said, and as such should be regarded as enemies themselves. He therefore would go to Namhae and cut off their heads.
Yi, angry now: “Your emperor commanded you to annihilate the enemy in order to save the lives of our countrymen. Now you intend to kill them instead of rescuing them. That is not the august wish of the emperor!”
“The emperor gave me a long sword!” Chen roared back, reaching for his weapon in a threatening way.
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Yi refused to budge, and Chen did not press the matter further. The blockade of Waegyo remained in place, at least for one more day.
Konishi Yukinaga sent a final representative to Chen Lin on December 14, this time to request that a single boat be allowed to pass to carry a message to the Japanese garrisons to the east that they should go ahead with their plans to withdraw. Chen agreed. The vessel was allowed through the blockade—and promptly made its way to Shimazu Yoshihiro’s neighboring fortress at Sachon to summon help for Konishi’s beleaguered men. When Yi Sun-sin learned of the boat’s passage later that day, he rightly suspected that enemy reinforcements would not be long in coming. When they arrive, he explained to his subcommanders, our ships will be vulnerable to a pincers attack, a combined assault by Konishi’s fleet from the north and enemy reinforcements from the east. Considering this risk, the best course of action would be to lift the blockade and move east across Kwangyang Bay to meet the approaching enemy fleet before it could join forces with Konishi.
Korean sources say that Chen Lin felt guilty when he realized what he had done in letting that one boat pass through the blockade. But it is likely that the cagey admiral knew exactly what he was doing. He had wanted Yi Sun-sin to lift his blockade of Waegyo. And now it was being lifted.
The men of the allied Korean-Ming navy were served a hearty meal before setting out from Waegyo on December 14. With a battle in the offing it might be the last hot food they would see for days. The fleet then raised anchor and moved east under the cover of darkness to Noryang Strait, a narrow passage between the island of Namhae and the mainland at the east end of Kwangyang Bay. If reinforcements were coming to aid Konishi, they would have to pass this way.
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On the evening of December 15, some three hundred Japanese ships began congregating at Noryang, just as Yi Sun-sin had suspected they would. Most were from Shimazu Yoshihiro’s fortress at Sachon, which lay beyond the strait and across Chinju Bay twenty-five kilometers to the east.
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Tsushima daimyo So Yoshitoshi is also reported to have been present with a force of his own. They intended to join forces with Konishi’s besieged troops at Waegyo to drive off the allied navy, then put to sea together for the return voyage to Japan. It would not work out that way. Shortly after midnight the combined allied navy appeared at the far end of the strait, blocking the entrance into Kwangyang Bay.
The Japanese passed through
Noryang Strait shortly before dawn the next morning to find the allied navy waiting for them in the open water beyond. The bulk of the fleet comprised eighty-five heavy Korean vessels, board-roofed warships with presumably a few turtle ships as well. Interspersed between these were two types of Chinese craft: six large war junks equipped with sails and oars, and fifty-seven smaller oar-propelled galleys, both well-armed with a variety of cannons, the heaviest of them weighing nearly three hundred kilograms and firing two-kilogram iron balls. The entire force was divided into three squadrons, Yi Sun-sin in command on the right (with 2,600 Ming fighters on board his ships to fight alongside his own men), Chen Lin at the center, and Ming commander Deng Zilong on the left.
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Shimazu Yoshihiro for his part commanded a larger fleet, but a signifi
cant portion of his vessels were lightly built transports—good for ferrying men back to Japan, but no match for a cannon or the ramming prow of a Korean battleship. He was therefore in for a serious fight.
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Chen Lin at the center of the formation was one of the first to engage. Soon his flagship was surrounded by Japanese vessels pouring out of the strait, and the old Ming admiral, who had been willing at Waegyo to let the Japanese go in peace, was forced to fight for his life in the decisive battle Yi Sun-sin had wanted all along. The musket fire grew so intense that Chen’s men were forced to take cover, giving the Japanese the opportunity to close with his vessel and send boarding parties scrambling onto the deck. In the hand-to-hand fighting that ensued Chen’s own son was injured when he blocked a sword thrust directed at his father. One of Chen’s commanders managed to skewer the attacker with a trident and cast him overboard before he could finish the young man off.
Seeing that Chen’s flagship was surrounded and in trouble, left wing commander Deng Zilong and two hundred of his Zhejiang fighters transferred to a Korean warship so that they could go to his aid. One of the other vessels in the allied fleet, mistaking the commander and his men for an enemy boarding party, came up behind them and opened fire, causing many casualties and disabling the ship. The stricken vessel was soon set upon by the Japanese and Deng and all his men were killed.
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Yi Sun-sin’s squadron had in the meantime raced in from the right and was now rampaging through the enemy ranks, leveling mortar broadsides into their hulls and spewing flames across the decks with hwapo fire cannons. Much of the fighting occurred at such close range that the Koreans are said to have been able to hurl burning pieces of wood across the way and onto the Japanese ships.
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Yi’s heavily built turtle ships and board-roofed ships were as usual largely impervious to the musket fire that the Japanese threw back, the light balls unable to penetrate the thick wooden hulls and roofing. Yi’s own warship report
edly destroyed a total of ten enemy vessels, including what appeared to be a flagship, judging from the high platform with red awning erected on its deck. Yi personally fired the arrow that felled one of the commanders seated there. The sight of this attack forced the Japanese vessels surrounding Chen Lin’s command ship to break off their attack and rush to protect their leader, thereby easing the pressure on the Ming admiral. Yi’s men managed to fight off the assault, and destroyed the Japanese flagship with hojunpo mortars and fire.
The combined strength of the Korean and Chinese navy eventually proved too much for Shimazu Yoshihiro’s larger but less powerful fleet. One by one his ships were set on fire and sunk, clogging the icy water at the entrance of
Noryang Strait with blazing wreckage, abandoned armor and weapons, and burned men struggling to stay afloat. It is said that Shimazu’s own flagship capsized when it ran onto a rock, and the daimyo commander himself nearly gaffed and hauled aboard by allied sailors before being saved by Japanese ships that rushed to his aid.
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The Japanese nevertheless had a good deal of fight left in them still. Desperate now to break through the enemy fleet and get away home to
Japan, they continued to fire back with their muskets with considerable effect, filling the air with a curtain of lead that caused many casualties aboard the Korean and Chinese ships. At one point Korean captain Song Hui-rip, a close friend of Yi Sun-sin, was struck in the helmet by a musket ball and fell unconscious to the deck. He eventually came to his senses, bound up his head and continued to fight.
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Others were not so lucky. The list of Korean dead would include many rank-and-file fighting men, several captains, and even top commanders.
With the battle now going against them, the Japanese began fighting a rearguard action south along the coast of Namhae Island and toward the open sea. Yi Sun-sin remained in close pursuit, determined not to let a single “enemy seed” escape. He stood at the bow of his ship, shouting encouragement to his men and beating on the war drum to urge on the other vessels in the fleet. At his side stood his eldest son, Yi Hoe, and his nephew, Yi Wan, son of an elder brother who had died many years before.
Suddenly the Korean commander clutched his chest and slumped to the deck. A stray bullet had struck him high on the left side, near the armpit, entering his chest and possibly piercing his heart. It was at least the third time Yi had been wounded during his twenty-two years of military service. This time the wound was fatal. Knowing that the sight of their fallen leader would adversely affect the morale of his men, Yi gasped out to Hoe and Wan, “Don’t let the men know....” And then he died. Struggling to maintain their composure, the two men carried the commander’s body into his cabin before the calamity could be noticed. For the remainder of the battle Yi Sun-sin’s personal banner was kept flying from the topmast as Yi Wan continued to beat the war drum, sending reassurance to the squadron that his uncle was still in the fight and victory therefore assured. It would only be later, after the battle was won, that word of the commander’s death was allowed to spread through the fleet. Chen Lin himself is said to have been greatly shocked by the news, slumping down and beating his chest in grief as cries of mourning arose from the Korean ships gathered nearby.
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