③ My Mother's Death, on the Road as a Disgraced Soldier

Have you ever read Admiral Yi Sun-sin's war diary, the Nanjung Ilgi?

The truth is, the Nanjung Ilgi is a book that asks a great deal of background knowledge from its reader. It records the events of each day plainly, diary-fashion, so read without context it stirs no feeling at all, and can seem flat.

The Nanjung Ilgi (Seohae Munjip edition)

But once you know why the Admiral wrote what he wrote on a given day — once you understand what lies between the lines — it becomes a book that can set your chest on fire on one page, bring tears on another, and on yet another leave you pounding your own chest in anger.

If you've read my earlier posts in this series, you'll know exactly what I mean. If you haven't, I'd encourage you to follow the links back and read them in order before continuing here.

A Cry of Grief on the Shore at Haeam-ri

Here is the Admiral's diary entry for April 11, 1597:

Clear skies. My dawn dream was deeply troubling, more than I can put into words. I called for Deok-i and told her roughly what I had dreamed, and told my son Ul as well. My heart was so unsettled I could hardly hold myself together, as if drunk or half out of my mind — what omen could this be? Thinking of my ailing mother, tears fell without my knowing it. I sent a servant to learn how she was doing. The Uigeumbu inspector returned to Onyang.

At the time, Admiral Yi had just walked out of the prison of the Uigeumbu, the royal tribunal, on April 1, and was making his way south as a soldier stripped of all rank. His mother, hearing that her son had been freed, had set out by boat from faraway Suncheon — old and unwell as she was — bound for Asan, where the Admiral had spent his childhood.

Lady Byeon was eighty-three that year. Driven by nothing but her wish to see her son again, she pushed herself to make the boat journey — and died aboard the ship before she arrived. It is all but certain that she drew her last breath on that very day, April 11, the day of the diary entry above. Admiral Yi, unaware of this tragedy, was simply making his way toward Haeam-ri, in present-day Inju-myeon, Asan, to meet her.

Two days later, his diary entry for April 13, 1597, reads:

Clear skies. After an early meal, I went out along the shore road to meet my mother. On the way, I stopped at Magistrate Hong's house and talked a while; my son Ul had sent the servant Aesu ahead, but there was still no word that the boat had come. Then I heard that Hwang Cheon-sang had arrived at Byeon Heung-baek's house carrying a bottle of liquor, so I took my leave of Magistrate Hong and went there. Before long the servant Sunhwa came from the boat and brought news of my mother's death. I ran out, beating my chest and crying out in grief; even the sun in the sky seemed to go dark. I rushed straight to the shore, and the boat had already arrived. Looking at it from the road, my heart broke with a grief I cannot fully set down in writing. I have written only roughly, afterward.

Admiral Yi had endured an unjust imprisonment and torture, and had come to Asan on the road of a disgraced soldier, hoping at last to see the mother he revered like Heaven itself. Instead, he met her as a cold body. What must have been in his heart in that moment?

But he was not given even enough time to properly mourn her and hold her funeral. The order to march on, stripped of rank, was already waiting for him.

Leaving Without a Proper Funeral

Barely a week after facing his mother's body, his diary entry for April 19, 1597, reads:

Clear skies. I set out early and, before my mother's coffin, bowed in farewell and wailed aloud.

What can I do, what can I do, what can I do...
Is there anywhere in heaven and earth a fate like mine?
Better simply to die.

At my nephew Roe's house, I bowed in farewell before the ancestral shrine... (the rest omitted)

On April 13, Admiral Yi had held his mother's body and wept without restraint. Just seven days later, he bowed his farewell before her coffin and set out once more on the road of a disgraced soldier. Reading this entry, what do you feel?

Removed from his post as the undefeated Naval Commander of the Three Provinces, imprisoned and tortured, and now confronting his mother's death without even a proper funeral before being forced back onto the road — "better simply to die" must have been exactly what filled the Admiral's heart.

And yet Admiral Yi did not die. Or rather, he chose not to. He quickened his steps once more, because there was still something he had to do. Stripped of everything, carrying the deepest grief imaginable, what do you think was heavy enough to set him walking forward again?

👉 Next post: ④ Life and Death Are Heaven's Will — If I Must Die, I Will Die

— Momcheolhak