⑲ Why Did the Turtle Ship Fight for Only Three Months? (Part 5)

Through Part 4, the turtle ship fought alongside Admiral Yi's second, third, and fourth sorties for three months, from the Battle of Sacheon on May 29, 1592, to the Great Victory of Busanpo on September 1. At Dangpo, Danghangpo, and Hansan Island, it earned real distinction.

And then, after the Great Victory of Busanpo, the turtle ship's activity seemed to vanish entirely.

An Unexpected Record -- the Battle of Ungpo

But going back through the Yi Chungmugong Jeonseo once more this time, I found an unexpected record.

On February 18, 1593, in the waters off Ungcheon. A dispatch titled “A Report Ordering the Various Land and Sea Commanders to Strike Ungcheon Directly” contains this passage:

The left assault turtle-ship commander, staff officer Yi Eon-ryang, and others pursued three cornered enemy ships.

This is the same Yi Eon-ryang who was named “turtle-ship assault commander” at Busanpo.

Even after Busanpo, at least up to this point, the post of turtle-ship commander remained on the roster, and he was, in fact, sent out to chase down enemy ships.

A record of the turtle ship's presence and action does survive from the Battle of Ungpo in February 1593, but its role there was nothing compared to what it had been in 1592. Still, the last battle in which the turtle ship fought turns out not to be the Great Victory of Busanpo, as I had once believed, but the Battle of Ungpo.

In summary: the turtle ship's first battle was Sacheon, and its last was Ungpo.

(As an aside, “Battle of Ungpo” is the name used today; in the original text of the Yi Chungmugong Jeonseo, the place appears as “Ungcheon.”)

So why does the turtle ship disappear from the record after the Battle of Ungpo?

After Hansan Island, a Ban on Naval Engagements

After the Japanese navy's crushing defeat at Hansan Island, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered his forces not to engage the Joseon navy head-on at sea. A naval ban.

At Busanpo, the Japanese were already following that order. They left their ships in the harbor, but rather than face the Joseon fleet directly, they abandoned their ships and climbed the hills to fight with muskets and arrows. Even so, with some 470 enemy ships sitting in front of them, the Joseon navy was able to sink roughly 100.

At Ungpo too, the enemy hid their ships deep in the inlet and refused to fight. They built strongholds on high ground to attack the approaching Joseon fleet and protect their ships, and even when the Joseon navy tried to lure them out, they would only follow so far before turning back into the harbor.

These weren't conditions in which the turtle ship could play its role.

Fortifications Rise Along the Southern Coast

In 1592, the Japanese began building defensive strongholds at the territories they had seized -- Gadeokdo (at the mouth of the Nakdong River), Busanpo, and Yeongdeungpo on Geoje Island. Then, in May 1593, after withdrawing from Hanseong (present-day Seoul), Toyotomi Hideyoshi issued a formal order directing that fortresses be built at every strategic point along the southern coast.

Japanese-style fortresses rose at nineteen sites, including Busanjinseong, Imnangpo, Jukseong-ri in Gijang, Gupo, Jukdo in Gimhae, Nulchado, Ungcheon, and Seosaengpo. Counting the ones built later during the Jeongyu War, the total across the whole southern coast comes to more than thirty.

Seosaengpo Waeseong, a Japanese-built fortress

Seosaengpo Waeseong was the largest and most elaborate of them. Built by Kato Kiyomasa, it covered some 46,000 pyeong including its moat, with an outer perimeter of 2.5 kilometers. Inside, it reportedly had a command tower and even a palace-like residence for its commander.

These fortresses were not mere defensive structures.

They wrapped around both hillside and flat ground, with their walls built in layered, stepped tiers, so that each section could fight its own defensive battle independently.

They were, by design, nearly impregnable.

The Japanese ships hid inside these fortified harbors. And from the walls above, cannon and troops protected those ships.

The Ceasefire Talks Between Ming China and Japan

From March 1593 to September 1596, a long ceasefire negotiation dragged on between Ming China and Japan.

Ming wanted to end the fighting and shut Joseon out of the process entirely.

The only battles fought during this period were the Second Battle of Danghangpo (1594) and the Battle of Jangmunpo (1594) -- and even those amounted, in both cases, to little more than mopping up small groups of fleeing enemies or burning ships the Japanese had abandoned; calling them “battles” feels almost like an overstatement.

And across the two full years of 1595 and 1596, nothing that could be recorded as a naval battle occurred at all.

With the ceasefire talks between Ming and Japan dragging on, the Japanese stayed hidden inside their fortresses and never came out at all -- and the turtle ship never had a chance to fight.

And yet, despite all this, Admiral Yi increased the number of turtle ships from three to five by 1595.

This is confirmed by a record in the Sadaemungwe, a compiled collection of diplomatic documents between Joseon and Ming China at the time:

In the eulmi year (1595), the Naval Commander of the Three Provinces, Yi Sun-sin, commanded 60 warships, 5 turtle ships, and 65 scout ships.

After the Great Victory of Busanpo on September 1, 1592, the turtle ship leaves only a brief trace at Ungcheon in February 1593 -- and after that, no sign of it appears anywhere through 1596.

In Part 6, I'll trace why the turtle ship stayed absent even after the outbreak of the Jeongyu War in 1597, and even after Admiral Yi's death.

👉 Next post: ⑳ Why Did the Turtle Ship Fight for Only Three Months? (Part 6, Conclusion)

— Momcheolhak.