⑰ The Man Who Defended the Admiral at Court: Yi Won-ik

In the last post, we saw what Ryu Seong-ryong, the Chief State Councillor, wrote in the Jingbirok, his memoir of the war:

that in 1597, when Admiral Yi Sun-sin — the commander who saved Joseon at sea during the Imjin War — was under attack, "only Right State Councillor Yi Won-ik made it clear that this was not so."

The subject of this post is that Yi Won-ik.

Yi Won-ik is one of Joseon's famous cheongbaengni, officials known for their clean and frugal lives. He served as Chief State Councillor five times, yet his house is said to have been a thatched cottage of only two or three rooms. He is known as the man who shielded Admiral Yi to the very end during the Imjin War.

That is true. But when you follow the Nanjung Ilgi, the Admiral's war diary, day by day, the relationship between the two turns out not to be so simple. There were days when the Admiral laughed at Yi Won-ik.

How did Yi Won-ik become the man who defended the Admiral? Let us follow the records from 1595, when the two first met, to 1597, when the Admiral was serving as a common soldier in disgrace.

The 8th Month of 1595: First Meeting at Jinju

In 1595, Yi Won-ik became Right State Councillor and also took the post of Do-chechalsa of four provinces. The Do-chechalsa was the wartime commissioner who oversaw the military and administration of several provinces on the king's behalf. He was two years younger than Admiral Yi. (Yi Chungmugong Jeonseo, Book 9, Haengnok, notes)

In the 8th month of that year, Yi Won-ik came to Jinju and summoned the Admiral.

"I went to where the Commissioner was, and as we talked quietly, many thoughts came to me about easing the suffering of the people." (Nanjung Ilgi, 23rd day of the 8th month, 1595)

Hundreds of Petitions Settled at One Sitting

A story not written in the diary survives in the Haengnok, the biography of the Admiral written by his nephew Yi Bun.

As Yi Won-ik passed through the Honam region, the petitions submitted by naval soldiers were beyond counting. He deliberately left them unhandled. He rolled them all up, carried them to Jinju, and piled them in front of the Admiral.

"The Admiral held a brush in his right hand and drew the papers toward him with his left, judging and signing as smoothly as flowing water, and finished them all in a short while. When the Councillor and the Deputy Commissioner took them and looked, every one was reasonable and just." (Yi Chungmugong Jeonseo, Book 9, Haengnok)

When Yi Won-ik, astonished, asked how he could be so skilled, the Admiral answered:

"These are all matters concerning the navy. I always see and hear them, so I am familiar with them." (Yi Chungmugong Jeonseo, Book 9, Haengnok)

Yi Won-ik had been testing the Admiral. He wanted to judge the man not by rumor but by his work.

"I Fed 5,480 Soldiers"

On the 25th day of the 8th month, Yi Won-ik's party boarded the Admiral's ship and went with him to Hansan Island. All day they pointed out the islands and the garrisons and discussed how to combine the small scattered posts.

Two days later, the diary says only this, briefly:

"I fed 5,480 soldiers." (Nanjung Ilgi, 27th day of the 8th month, 1595)

The story behind this single line is in the Haengnok.

When Yi Won-ik was about to leave, the Admiral made a request. The soldiers, he said, were expecting a feast and rewards because a State Councillor had come, and they would be disappointed if there were nothing. Yi Won-ik was at a loss; he had not come prepared. Then the Admiral said:

"I have prepared it in advance for you. If you will permit it, I will hold the feast by your order." (Yi Chungmugong Jeonseo, Book 9, Haengnok)

The Admiral had prepared the feast ahead of time and gave the credit to Yi Won-ik. The soldiers must have thought it was a feast given by the State Councillor.

Later, Yi Won-ik recalled this himself before King Injo. He said they had slaughtered more than thirty oxen to feed the soldiers. King Injo answered:

"Yi was a true general. His heart and his wisdom are also worthy of praise." (Yi Chungmugong Jeonseo, Book 9, Haengnok, quoting the Ori-jip)

In the diary there is only the one line, "I fed them." He did not reveal what he had done even in his own diary.

Spring 1596: "Has It No Substance?"

Up to this point, the two seem to have been in harmony from the start. But the next spring, the mood of the diary changes.

In the 2nd month of 1596, an order came down from the Commissioner: the navy of Right Jeolla was to go back and forth between Left and Right Jeolla and support Jeju and Jindo. The Admiral wrote in his diary that day:

"Laughable. How can the court's policy be like this! How can the Commissioner's plans have so little substance! When the affairs of the nation are like this, what is to be done!" (Nanjung Ilgi, 28th day of the 2nd month, 1596)

Two days later, the Admiral wrote a report and sent it to the Commissioner. The diary does not say what was in it.

A little over ten days later, the Commissioner's reply came.

"His reply said that sending the Right Province's navy, combined, to our province had not been his intention. Laughable." (Nanjung Ilgi, 12th day of the 3rd month, 1596)

Then, on the 26th day of the 3rd month, another messenger came from the Commissioner.

"He said, 'The earlier order (of the 12th) to send back the Right Province's navy was because the report to the throne had been misread.' Laughable." (Nanjung Ilgi, 26th day of the 3rd month, 1596)

An order came down; then a reply saying it had not been the intention; then a messenger saying a document had been misread. Each time, the Admiral wrote, "Laughable."

The Yi Won-ik we know is the man who recognized the Admiral's worth. Even about that Yi Won-ik, the Admiral wrote this in his diary. Whoever it was, when something went wrong, he wrote that it was wrong.

In part ㉚ of the "Rereading the Records of Admiral Yi" series, we looked at how sharp the Admiral of the original draft of the diary really was. That sharpness was not aimed only at Won Gyun.

Autumn 1596: Two Months Traveling Together

That autumn, the two traveled together for a long time.

From the intercalary 8th month through the 9th month, the Admiral accompanied the Commissioner on his inspection tour of Jeolla Province. The route began at Duchi in Hadong and went on through Gwangyang, Suncheon, Nokdo, Jindo, Usuyeong, Muan, Mujang, and Jangseong.

"Setting out for Nokdo, we looked over the military farmland at Doyang on the way. The Commissioner looked very pleased." (Nanjung Ilgi, 19th day of the intercalary 8th month, 1596)

"We set out early, boarded the ship, and sat together with the Commissioner and the Deputy Commissioner, talking about military affairs all day." (Nanjung Ilgi, 20th day of the intercalary 8th month, 1596)

Yi Won-ik saw with his own eyes the dunjeon, the military farmland the Admiral had built up by gathering the people.

The First Defense Before King Seonjo

About a month after the tour, on the 5th day of the 10th month of 1596, Yi Won-ik met King Seonjo. The king asked:

King Seonjo: "At first, I heard, he worked hard capturing the Japanese, but later I heard he was not without a slack heart. What kind of man is he?"
Yi Won-ik: "In my humble view, he is the most outstanding among the many commanders. As for his growing slack during the war, unlike at first, that is something I do not know of."
King Seonjo: "Does he have the ability to command and control?"
Yi Won-ik: "In my humble opinion, among the many commanders in Gyeongsang Province, Sun-sin is the finest." (Annals of King Seonjo, 5th day of the 10th month, year 29)

King Seonjo already suspected the Admiral. Before him, Yi Won-ik said what he had seen with his own eyes.

Yi Won-ik probably did not know what the Admiral had written about him in his diary that spring. But I think his answer would have been the same even if he had known. What Yi Won-ik saw was not the Admiral's words but the Admiral's deeds.

1597: The Man Who Defended Him Alone

The year turned, and early in 1597 the order came to arrest the Admiral and bring him up. Opinion at court leaned toward blaming him. Ryu Seong-ryong wrote of the court at that time in the Jingbirok:

"Because I was the one who first recommended Yi Sun-sin, those who disliked me joined forces with Won Gyun and put all their strength into attacking Yi Sun-sin. Only Right State Councillor Yi Won-ik made it clear that this was not so, and he also said: 'Yi Sun-sin and Won Gyun each had areas to guard, so not advancing at once at first was no great fault.'" (Jingbirok, Book 2)

In the word "only," you can see where Yi Won-ik stood at the time. Yi Won-ik, who was in the Yeongnam region, also hurriedly sent a letter to the king:

"What the Japanese fear is our navy. Yi must not be replaced, and Won Gyun must not be sent." (Yi Chungmugong Jeonseo, Book 9, Haengnok)

The court did not listen. Yi Won-ik is said to have sighed:

"There is nothing more that can be done for the affairs of the nation." (Yi Chungmugong Jeonseo, Book 9, Haengnok)

Received in Mourning White

The Admiral was tortured, released, and set out on the road as a common soldier in disgrace. On that road he lost his mother.

In the 5th month, while the Admiral was staying in Gurye, word came that the Commissioner was entering Gurye. Feeling it improper to stay inside the town walls, the Admiral moved his lodging outside. (Nanjung Ilgi, 19th day of the 5th month, 1597) Then Yi Won-ik sent people to him first — not once, but three times.

"Hearing that I was staying there, the Commissioner first sent a clerk, then sent his officer Yi Ji-gak, and a little later sent another officer to offer condolences, saying, 'I had not heard earlier that you were in mourning; I have only now heard it, and I am shocked and grieved.' He asked whether we could meet that evening." (Nanjung Ilgi, 20th day of the 5th month, 1597)

"At dusk I went to see him. The Commissioner received me dressed in mourning white." (Nanjung Ilgi, 20th day of the 5th month, 1597)

The Commissioner-General, dressed in mourning white, received a disgraced man serving as a common soldier. He was showing the courtesy due to a man who had lost his mother. The two talked late into the night.

Three days later, Yi Won-ik called for the Admiral again.

"The Commissioner sent someone to call me, so I went to see him and we discussed matters quietly. He was greatly indignant about the wrongs of the times, and said he was only waiting for the day he would die." (Nanjung Ilgi, 23rd day of the 5th month, 1597)

The next day he asked the Admiral to draw a map of the coast of Right Gyeongsang Province. The Admiral wrote that he could not refuse, and sent a rough drawing. (Nanjung Ilgi, 24th day of the 5th month, 1597) Here was someone who asked about the sea of a man who had been stripped of his office.

A Dream Two Days Before Chilcheollyang

On the 14th day of the 7th month of 1597, the Admiral had a strange dream.

"In a dream at dawn, I arrived somewhere with the Commissioner, and corpses lay spread all over the ground; some we stepped on, and some we had beheaded." (Nanjung Ilgi, 14th day of the 7th month, 1597)

Two days later, on the 16th day of the 7th month, the Joseon navy collapsed at Chilcheollyang.

What Did Yi Won-ik See, That He Defended Him?

After the Admiral died, Yi Won-ik is said to have told the story of the feast on Hansan Island and marveled again and again:

"Naval Commander Yi was truly a great man." (Yi Chungmugong Jeonseo, Book 9, Haengnok)

Rereading the relationship between the two, I learned something new.

Yi Won-ik did not judge the Admiral by rumor. He tested him with a pile of petitions, saw his farmland himself, and traveled with him for two months. That is why, when the king suspected the Admiral, he could say what he had seen. And when the whole court blamed the Admiral, he could say, alone, "It was no great fault." Yi Won-ik's defense was a statement of what he had seen with his own eyes. When the Admiral, a condemned man, lost his mother, Yi Won-ik received him in mourning white.

The same was true of the Admiral. When he thought Yi Won-ik's orders were wrong, he wrote in his diary that they had "no substance." Yet before Yi Won-ik, he upheld him. He held the feast he himself had prepared in the State Councillor's name. He kept the judgment he made inwardly apart from the courtesy he kept outwardly.

The two did not trust each other merely because they liked each other. They trusted each other because they had seen what each had done. That, I think, is why their trust was not easily shaken.

Yet despite Yi Won-ik's defense, the Admiral was imprisoned in the end. In the next post, we will meet Jeong Tak, the man who saved the imprisoned Admiral.

👉 Next post: ⑱ The Man Who Protected the Admiral at Court: Jeong Tak

— Momcheolhak

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