Modern Turtle Ship replica at the War Memorial Museum , Seoul , South Korea . Image source : http :// www . koreanhero . net / en / ViewImage . htm ? name = Kobukson _ 2 . jpg
Since there were probably not many more than a dozen Kŏbuksŏn operational at one time . Horace Underwood , an authority on the Korean marine , suggests that the emphasis placed by Yi Sun-Shin ’ s admirers on the unique nature of the Turtle Ships ’ design fails to recognize that Admiral Yi Sun-Shin ’ s true “ genius ” lay not in the Turtle Ship ’ s design , but in the development of ship-fighting tactics that exploited their strengths : after Yi Sun-Shin was temporarily superseded in command , his successor was ignominiously defeated while deploying the same ships in battle while failing to employ his revolutionary tactics . 13
Yi Sun-Shin , developer of the “ Turtle Ships ,” addressed the fundamental problem posed by the Japanese tactics and weapons : how could Korean ships avoid being shattered by close range bow and musket fire and boarded by the world ’ s best swordsmen ? The answer lay in speed and longer range fire-power . His ships were almost twice as long and half as wide ( 110 feet by 38 ) 14 as their Japanese counterparts , making them move much faster through the water , while his cannon could outrange Japanese musket balls . He could thus keep Japanese ships at a distance and pound them into pieces , using perhaps as many as forty 36-pound cannons firing through hatches along its side ( additional single cannon were mounted in the mouth of the good luck-attracting dragon ’ s head carved into the prow and beneath the stern transom ). In retrospect , Yi Sun-Shin was not alone in producing the first “ stand-off ” weapon . His English contemporary , Sir Francis Drake ( 1540 – 1596 ), had also abandoned the grapple-board-and have-at-them style of naval fighting that had gone unchanged for perhaps two thousand years and adopted in its stead the form of naval warfare later pursued from Trafalgar through to Jutland , Cape Matapan and Leyte Gulf .
One of Yi Sun-Shin ’ s talents was that he anticipated that his enemies would ultimately adjust their own war-fighting strategy to meet this new challenge : Japanese ships ultimately came to mount more cannon of their own . However , like Drake , Yi Sun-Shin always remained a step ahead of his foe . His forces were the first to adopt an “ in line ahead ” sailing protocol Yi Sun-Shin called “ holding onto each other ’ s tail ” 15 that enabled each ship to bring its guns to bear upon the same targets as they passed them in turn . He also deployed a tactic called “ drawing the fish into the net ,” the feigning of retreat in order to draw entire enemy fleets into position to attack . Further , he knew that he could not always dictate the rules of engagement . There would be times when his forces would have to come to close quarters with Japanese ships and face their intense close-in fire and skilled boarding parties . In part to offset this advantage , Yi Sun- Shin apparently invented the “ smokescreen ,” an on-board smoke generator that produced sulfur and saltpeter fumes which he designed to create “ a mist so that the enemy cannot see the ship .” 16 He also addressed the problem posed by close-quarters action through the very structure of the Turtle Ships themselves .
Building on evolving Korean practice of cannon use ( introduced from China in 1373 ) and the well-known need for protection for crews , Yi Sun-Shin entirely enclosed his oarsmen and gun crews in ironbound , four-inch thick wood deck planking all-but-impervious to arrows and musket fire . A recent work by self-admitted non-naval architects argues that the exposed upper planks may have been covered by very thin metal sheets , which may have given rise to the idea that the ships were made of metal or armored , 17 but even this study confirms that Korean deck wood seems to have been more than adequate to this task and obviated the dangers of added weight . More important , and most likely Yi ’ s own idea , was that the curved upper-most deck acted as a roof protecting the crew , who were trained to shove spear points through slots in the decking that were concealed by thatch strewn over the deck and the smoke generated by the ship itself . Japanese samurai jumping down onto a Turtle Ship were likely to either be impaled upon the blades concealed in the deck or slide off its rounded upper surface into the sea . 18
INTO BATTLE : 1592 Having prepared his new vessels and trained his crews , Yi sun-Shin moved around the peninsula to relieve the devastated fleet of the Korean commander , Wŏn Kyun , on the southeast coast of Korea . Wŏn Kyun so resented this help that while both were still in the field , he plotted to destroy his rescuer with what Yi later described as “ an evil heart full of knavish tricks .” 19 Wŏn Kyun undermined Yi ’ s reputation at court . Oblivious to Wŏn Kyun ’ s plot , Yi Sun-Shin focused on the foreign foe and crushed them in a series of naval battles , one so intense that the admiral was wounded , which he concealed from his men . This campaign ended with the triumphant victory at Hansando in 1592 , evocatively described by Yi Sun-Shin ’ s nephew in a readily available account detailing with how Yi drew the Japanese from a shallow narrows suitable for the enemies ’ ships “ out to the open sea to destroy them in a single blow .” This was accomplished by feigning defeat , after which “ Ch ’ ungmu-kong waved his flag , beat his drum , and
EDUCATION ABOUT ASIA Volume 12 , Number 1 Spring 2007
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