Korea: Admiral Yi - III: The Bright Moonlight of Hansando - Extra History

Yes, you did cover why the turtle ships were so OP; however, there is no mention of the strengths and weaknesses of the regular Korean warships during the period that these battles took place. Also, note that no turtle ships were used during Admiral Yi's greatest victory.

barefoot James

"No such thing as a good war." Korea, China, and even Japan suffered tremendous losses during this period... although I will say that, personally, I tend to view the country that got invaded as the most ill-fated of the three.

Extra History

It certainly would have had a profound impact on Korea - after all, even with Yi's successes, Korea suffered tremendous losses at the hands of the Japanese army on land. You don't see that much territory taken over without some serious casualties.

Extra History

Very often! I went into some detail in another comment, but encircling your enemy is a very common strategy... pulling it off correctly, though, is far less common than you'd think, once you factor in the panic and adrenaline of a live battle.

Extra History

Coming up shortly! This is absolutely my favorite episode of this series - the one where my jaw just dropped and I found myself saying, "No way."

Extra History

We're married to our work. <3

Extra History

I'm guessing they still would have been stopped before achieving Toyotomi's ambition of taking over China, but even so, Japan having a land holding on the continent would definitely have changed things!

Extra History

It is bizarre, isn't it, how lopsided those two halves of the battle are? We don't talk much about the Japanese strategies on land, but even while some parts of the Korean army put up a strong resistance, the Japanese still steamrolled those parts of the battle almost as cleanly as Yi was streamrolling affairs in the navy.

Extra History

Encirclement is almost always an effective strategy, but it's one that has to be managed carefully! Recall that in the Justinian series, a Persian army encircled Belisarius but wound up overextending and leaving itself vulnerable to a counterattack. In a lot of cases, the idea to surround your enemy is a fairly simple one... but managing the battle properly, so that your strategy is executed properly and your strength isn't turned into a liability, is where strong commanders stand out.

Extra History

Yeah, I believe it was Episode 2 where we talked about Korean superiority with cannons, and episode 3 where we talk about what made the turtle ships so OP. We'll see a bit of how the Japanese fleet operates in episode 4, when they finally catch up to a Korean fleet.

Extra History

I'm actually not sure how the measurements for largest battle work out, but I'll see if James wants to talk about it during Lies. And you're correct that the Japanese navy was much, much more prepared for naval battle that focused around boarding over cannonades.

Extra History

It hasn't been in the Patreon vote, but it's a subject we'd be willing to cover!

Extra History

Yi's own writing is a major source for this, but far from our only one! Information about the land war actually comes much more from other sources than Yi, who was really just keeping a diary of his experiences, not attempting to retell the history of the war from afar. As many advantages at the Korean navy had over the Japanese navy, the Japanese army had just as many advantages over the Korean army: superior equipment, better commanders, and so on. We are not telling much of the story of the land war in this series, but there certainly were commanders who organized brave defenses and some even did better than you might expect given their disadvantages... but in the end, they were all forced to retreat time and again because their alternative was basically annhilation at the hands of the Japanese.

Extra History

The next episode will definitely show Yi's strengths as a commander, and also highlight something that can seem kind of invisible in the story so far: how *good* Yi is at managing his ships. It's true that his ships have superior cannon (with better range) and that he's been very good at baiting the Japanese into bad engagements, but he also *commands* those engagements with really amazing efficiency. Coaching his commanders and keeping an eye on everything in battle to make sure none of his ships get caught overextending is a big part of why Yi keeps being able to conduct such perfect victories.

Extra History

Also, the Japanese placed more emphasis on boarding actions. As a result their ships tended to carry more troops. Since many of their ships were used as pirate vessels against the Chinese and Koreans the Japanese were more interested in capturing rather than sinking enemy ships.

barefoot James

I do know that the Korean ships carried more and heavier cannon than the Japanese (10 or more for the Korean as opposed to 1 or 2 for the Japanese. Because of this the Korean ships were built of denser and thicker wood. This made the Korean ships more resistant to the Japanese cannon fire.

barefoot James

I'll give you the turtle ship. But the Crane's wing is not a an unusual battle formation, and seeing lightning and hearing thunder are not proof of a great commander. Yi's tactics here are certainly sound, but their immense effectiveness seems to have a strong relation to how terrible the Japanese are at naval strategy and tactics. They took the bait on almost every lure Yi put out, and allowed themselves to be encircled by a superior force. Yi is not being challenged by this enemy. Now, something that is credit to Yi, is the consistency of this. He almost never lost a ship, across all those fights, and several times the number of wounded were also tiny. He drilled his men excellently, and pulled off what is in theory a simply plan, with expert skill. And he has continually demonstrated himself to be a dedicated and capable warrior. Also, while Yi regularly has a numbers advantage per fight, that is a sign he is a wise commander. He does not go picking fights with much larger forces, on terms where he doesn't have an advantage--that's something a foolhardy glory-seeker does (see the Japanese naval commanders). I think the next episode will be a better example of Yi's genius as an admiral, as he'll be seriously put to the test.

Mask

It was mentioned a few videos ago when separating the tactics, and how although the Japanese had a far more modern army, their navy was lacking compared to the Korean. It was even implied in this video when Dan states that the Korean ships have regular range, though I too would like more specifics regarding the ways that the Korean ships were better.

Sebastián Izquierdo

Not really, Yi's tactics in these battles are sound strategy, and that Cranes Wing Formation... Yi successfully adapted and employed envelopment tactics on open water; also, Yi's secret weapons, the Turtle ships are a design masterpiece of their era, and how he used them was brutally efficient.

Leonard Rinehart-Mann

You know, this makes it a a little hard to tell whether Yi was one of the greatest Admirals, or his enemies were just worthless seamen.

Mask

You mentioned during the last Q&A that the main source for this is Yi's own writing. Do we know how fair his assessment of the land war is (Which based on this episode seems to be 'they retreated from fortifications that they couldn't afford to retreat from'), if so?

Stephen

Has the Meiji restoration ever been a potential theme for a series on extra history?

It also strongly resembles the Bull's Horns formation of Shaka Zulu. Apparently there's nothing quite as effective as making your enemy a peninsula in a sea of enemies.

David Poulton

Two things. 1) I find it hilarious that the Japanese ships actually looked like that - basically just a Japanese castle made to float and given oars. I'm not exactly a military history expert, but this suggests to me that they were designed with defending against boarding in mind, not with actually being sunk. 2) How are you measuring when you say that was the "largest naval battle in history"? Weren't there some back in the first punic war with hundreds of ships involved? ...maybe that'll come up during lies.

Nessf

So far, I have not seen any mention regarding the superiority of the regular Korean warships and naval cannon compared to those of the Japanese during this period. Other Korean admirals did not understand these strengths and weaknesses as well as Admiral Yi and, as a result, lost battles through using the same tactics as the Japanese.

barefoot James

I love your attention for Yi's naval tactics. Watching it through your channel, it made me realize how similar Yi's crane wing formation is to Hannibal's Cannae encirclement. A product of brilliant tactical minds perhaps? I appreciate your hard work and I understand that this series is about Yi (I wouldn't want anything else). Still, I felt that the righteous armies of Korea and the role of the Ming, both militarily and politically, didn't get the honorable mention they deserved. Yi was not the sole responsible for Korea's victory after all (even if his battles might be the coolest).

Hung Nguyen

Turtleshell too OP, nerf plz. Seriously, holy shit. I hadn't had a chance to study Japanese invasion of Korea in school, just that it had been a catalyst for increased trade with the West (supposedly, my high school world history had been lacking). I had no idea how one sided the naval and land campaigns had been. Keep it up guys!

The Cayute

I wonder how different Asian history would be if the Japanese had been successful in their invasion of Korea. Somebody get the Alternate History Hub on the line!

Michael Jebbett

After the Japanese invasions, 1 million Korean civilians will lay dead and countless more will die because of famine. Korea as a kingdom will never fully recover from this war.

Ki-Young Joannes Jang

It's not like the japanese were any more able to take over all of china in the 16th century than in the 20th. Hideoshi would have still died and Tokugawa would still want to stabilize his nation. With the financial hardships of the 18th century I doubt the japanese could have held korea

Michael Waisfeld

I dunno.. the collapse of the ming dynasty was one of the main reasons that lead eventually to the Taiping rebellion (still waiting for EH to cover it) and the opium wars, allowing the japanese to steamroll through korea again and the sino-japanese war and the communist takeover of china and... I lost my trail of thought...

Michael Waisfeld

Marry me

Martin Ockovsky

I can't wait for Myeongnyang. It's up there with Salamis and Samar Island for one of the greatest naval engagements in history.

Jim McGeehin

The Crane Wings reminds me of the horns maneuver we saw in the Zulu series (but with the head being used to pull the enemy into the trap). I wonder how many more times we'll see this style of warfare in future series.

Jason Youngberg

If that bullet that hit Admiral Yi had been slightly closer to centre; He could've died right there and Korea may well no longer exist. Japan would've won the Korean War, and not turned to Isolation. Japan would've tried to dominate East Asia before European & American powers had enough influence in the Pacific to stop them like they did in WW2. That is some "for want of a nail"-level insanity right there. A single bullet that could've resulted in completely different Asia, a completely different world.

GooGhoul

Yeaaah, about that. Its estimated that Japan did more economic damage to Korea in this war than the Korean war in 1950. I would argue that the biggest loser of this war were the Korean citizens who had to flee from the Japanese armies.

Ki-Young Joannes Jang

The funny thing is that the biggest loser of this war was actually China

Michael Waisfeld

Well I was just playing some old EC videos as background noise while I chip away at D5 but I could take a break for this.

Raspberyl