The Battle of Noryang, the last major battle of the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), was fought between the Japanese navy and the combined fleets of the Joseon Kingdom and the Ming dynasty. It took place in the early morning of 16 December (19 November in the Lunar calendar) 1598 and ended past dawn.
The allied force of about 150 Joseon and Ming Chinese ships, led by admirals Yi Sun-sin and Chen Lin, attacked and either destroyed or captured more than half of the 500 Japanese ships commanded by Shimazu Yoshihiro, who was attempting to link-up with Konishi Yukinaga. The battered survivors of Shimazu's fleet limped back to Busan and a few days later left for Japan. At the height of the battle, Yi was hit by a bullet from an arquebus and died shortly thereafter. Chen Lin reported the news back to the Wanli Emperor, and Chen and Yi were celebrated as national heroes thereafter.
Background
Due to setbacks in land and sea battles, the Japanese armies had been driven back to their network of fortresses, or wajō (和城), on the southeastern Korean coast. However, the wajō could not hold the entire Japanese army, so, in June 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Taikō who instigated the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598), and also the acting Japanese Lord of War, ordered 70,000 troops mostly from the Japanese Army of the Right to withdraw to the archipelago.
The Sunch'on wajō was the westernmost Japanese fortress and contained 14,000 troops commanded by Konishi Yukinaga, who was the leader of Japan's vanguard contingent during the first invasion, in 1592. Yi Sun-sin and Chen Lin blocked Konishi from retreat.
On 15 December, about 20,000 Japanese troops from the wajō of Sach'on, Goseong, and Namhae boarded 500 ships and began to mass east of the Noryang Strait in an attempt to break the allied blockade of Sunch'on. The overall commander of this relief force was Shimazu Yoshihiro, the leader of the Sach'on wajō.
The objective of the allied fleet was to prevent the link-up of Shimazu's fleet with the fleet of Konishi, then attack and defeat Shimazu's fleet. The objective of Shimazu's fleet was to cross Noryang Strait, link up with Konishi and retreat to Busan. Shimazu knew that Konishi was trying to cause disunity within the Joseon-Ming alliance and hoped that they would be busy elsewhere or still blockading the Sunch'on wajō and thus vulnerable to an attack from their rear.
Battle
On 15 December, a huge Japanese fleet was amassed in Sach'on Bay, on the east end of the Noryang Strait. Shimazu was not sure whether the allied fleet was continuing the blockade of Konishi's wajō, on its way to attack an abandoned wajō further east, or blocking their way on the western end of Noryang Strait.
The Joseon fleet consisted of 82 panokseon multi-decked oared ships. The Ming fleet consisted of six large war junks (true battle vessels most likely used as flagships) that were driven by both oars and sails, 57 lighter war ships driven by oars alone (most likely transports converted for battle use), and two panokseon provided by Yi. In terms of manpower, the allied fleet had 8,000 sailors and marines under Yi, 5,000 Ming men of the Guangdong Squadron, and 2,600 Ming marines who fought aboard Korean ships, a total of almost 16,000 sailors and fighting men.
The Japanese had 500 ships, but a significant part of their fleet consisted of light transports. The Japanese ships were well-armed with arquebuses and also had some captured Joseon cannon. The allied fleet was outnumbered, but made up for it with ships which, on average, had superior firepower and heavier, more sturdy construction.
The allied fleet waited for Shimazu on the west end of Noryang Strait. The battle began around 2:00 am on 16 December.
As in Yi's previous battles, the Japanese were unable to respond effectively as the Korean and Chinese cannon fire prevented them from moving. When the Japanese fleet was significantly damaged, Chen ordered his fleet to engage in melee combat. This allowed the Japanese to use their arquebuses and fight using their traditional fighting style of boarding enemy ships. When Chen's flagship was attacked, Yi had to order his fleet to engage in hand-to-hand combat as well.
By the middle of the battle, as dawn was about to break, the allied fleet had the upper hand and half of Shimazu's fleet was either sunk or captured. It was said that Yoshihiro's flagship was sunk and that he was clinging to a piece of wood in the icy water. Japanese ships came to his rescue, pulling him to safety. During the course of the battle, the ships fought from the west end of the strait all the way across to the east end, almost to the open water. The Japanese sustained heavy damage and began to retreat along the south coast of Namhae Island, towards Pusan
Yi's death
As the Japanese retreated, Yi ordered a vigorous pursuit. During this time a stray arquebus bullet from an enemy ship struck him near the armpit, on his left side. Sensing that the wound was fatal, the admiral uttered, "We are about to win the war – keep beating the war drums. Do not announce my death."
Only three people witnessed Yi Sun-sin's death including Yi Hoe (his eldest son), his adjutant Song Hui-rip, and Yi Wan, his nephew. They struggled to regain their composure and carried Sun-sin's body into his cabin before others could notice. For the remainder of the battle, Wan wore his uncle's armor and continued to beat the war drum to let the rest of the fleet know that the Admiral's flagship was still in the fight.
Chen's ship was again in trouble, and Yi's flagship rowed to his rescue. Yi's flagship fought off and sank several Japanese ships, and Chen called for Yi to thank him for coming to his aid. However, Chen was met by Wan who announced that his uncle was dead. It is said that Chen himself was so shocked that he fell to the ground three times, beating his chest and crying.
Aftermath
Out of 500 Japanese ships under Shimazu's command, an estimated 200 were able to make it back to Busan Harbor (other Joseon archives record that Shimazu's remnants were fiercely pursued by Yi Sun-sin's fleet: only 50 ships of Shimazu's armada ever managed to escape). Konishi Yukinaga left his fortress on 16 December and his men were able to retreat by sailing through the southern end of Namhae Island, bypassing both the Noryang Strait and the battle. Although he knew the battle was raging, he made no effort to help Shimazu. This led to the loss of crucial supply lines that caused the inevitable loss of all Japanese strongholds in Korea. Konishi Yukinaga, Shimazu Yoshihiro, Katō Kiyomasa, and other Japanese generals of the Left Army congregated in Busan and withdrew to Japan on 21 December. The last ships sailed to Japan on 24 December.
Yi Sun-sin's body was brought back to his home town in Asan to be buried next to his father, Yi Chong (in accordance with Korean tradition). The court gave him the posthumous rank of Minister of the Right. Shrines, both official and unofficial, were constructed in his honor. In 1643, Yi was given the title of chungmugong, "duke/lord of loyal valor".
Chen gave a eulogy while attending Yi's funeral. He then withdrew his forces to Ming China and received high military honors. Joseon officials feared another Japanese invasion and requested the Ming army to remain. The Ming agreed and left behind a force of 3–4,000, which aided Joseon efforts in rebuilding and training forces until 1601.
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Cowbee, tankie influencer hehehe
Very bad-silly place. Some of the "concerns" could just be answered by actually reading your comment lmao
Something I read by PugJesus near the bottom of the front page of that comm feels like a reflection of their whole thing to me: "Least insane .ml bans. Remember, being anti-Israel and anti-Zionist isn't enough - you MUST be pro-Hamas!". What does it mean to be anti-Zionist and anti-"Israel" without being "pro"-the-organization-actually-fucking-carrying-out-the-liberation-of-Palestinian-people????? Or what does it mean to be a communist or a leftist while disowning every or at least the vast majority of historical projects that ever attempted to build a different world? What it means to me is..... pure liberalism. They, and the average imperial core leftist sadly, obviously oppose our current hegemonic social system is SOME way yet when it actually comes to down to things that matter (or in this case, is literally just rhetoric of internet posts lol) they cannot break with it. Instead they pretend to live in some kind of ideal abstracted away from the material world while being indistinguishable from imperialist chauvinists they say they hate in any position or action that cannot be abstracted away
"I'm a leftist and being a leftist means thinking leftist things. True communism has actually, literally, never been tried, just like the reactionary/conservative talking point. My ideas can change the world but any time anyone with my ideas tried it and weren't immediately killed it devolved into authoritarianism and totalitarianism and stuff, which are also these ideas in my head that I apply retroactively to the material world. Btw, we should bomb Iran for being anti-gay"
Idek... I just wish people who said stuff like "China is a dictatorship" or "Stalin was basically a red Hitler" would actually take their vibes-based (usually ime) criticisms and actually look into it lol. Is this too much to ask? They don't have to agree with me but it would be nice if, when pressed, they can give more substance than CNN articles and Wikipedia pages. Am I being too generous lol, I am very sleepy rn
Anti-tankie reader, pls post this on MeanwhileonGrad :3 and also msg me or something cuz as another imperial core leftist, I thought similarly to you once
Regarding PJ, they very carefully place an almost holy level of reverance for purely the most fleeting and unstable leftist movements in history, in a manner that can be analyzed to encourage such a martyred form of Socialism. Untainted by the sin of reality and struggle, these short-lived experiments are their only acceptable movements. Such an acceptance for only the most pure works against the more pure, it's an anti-AES stance that purely services the Imperial Core. When directly confronted, they seek to smear AES and lionize blindly these fleeting moments of "purity."
It's deeply silly, if such fleeting moments of purity were in fact grounded on material reality, then they would have lasted some degree of time. The fact that they don't last lends credence to the notion that they were in fact misanalyzing their material conditions. Such a failure to unite theory with practice proves the real impurity of these "noble martyrs." This is the real crux of their positions, when something becomes moderately successful it ceases to be entertaining, it ceases to be a perfect dream, and enters the realm of reality and faces real problems and struggles.
And yea, the likes of ArcaneSlime conflating my rejection of reformism a la Social Democracy with a somehow hypocritical stance towards the gradual nature of building Communism within Socialism pissed me off quite a bit to be honest. Despite my absolute patience with elaborating on how reformism is impossible, but that once the DotB is overthrown gradualism is required to continue progressing, ArcaneSlime takes the least logical interpretation of such and pretends I take the stance that Communism is immediate and need only a single button push.
I know I am not super well-read, I don't even consider myself to have the basics fully down, but from what I have read I know just how little reading it would take to correct these fantastical misinterpretations of Marx. This fact frustrates me to no end, and since debating them is useless when they have already licensed themselves to believe as such benefits themselves, all I can do is reject paying attention to it and taking solace in the knowledge that there likely isn't a way to get through to them, at least not in the present moment.
Great post, you have like..... an enormous amount of patience lol, just demonstrates how much you care
I saw your other post, am glad you're gonna take a break from the lemmy.ml posting trenches lol. I'm sure it must be so frustrating at times
I'm def not super well-read either and like...... I was NEVER this bad but i used to say similar stuff in the past, worked very briefly with a Trot party in my late teens, and.... at some point I realized how fake and shallow a lot of imperial core leftism is, not to mention usually extremely white and exclusive
It's so frustrating, I just want them to see the role they're fulfilling. This is partly how imperial core leftism (to the extent it ever existed, is arguable) was so thoroughly destroyed, by enforcing the rejection of any solidarity with liberatory movements in the third world. Instead their leftism, in practice, becomes about policing what is "acceptable" leftism and ruthlessly criticizing any real attempt, usually in the third world from people who are often the direct victims of their "leftism" (imperial core social democracy), to do anything about capitalism and imperialism. They may not have started this process but they are participating in it willfully. Ofc there is so much more to say about this shit, how racialized it is, how settler-colonialism relates to it, just ugh :(
They could do something different and I hope they do but there must be great comfort in their reductive, one-sided worldview where the correct approach to the injustice of capitalism is to do nothing at all. Similarly to what you said, maybe something will change that will change them, idk
Yep, I used to be the same. Thought I knew the basics of Marxism from just the Manifesto and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific alone with passing attention paid and an uncritical, western eye. It really is insidious to see just how vulgur and reductive the superstructure of Western Capitalist society plants the seeds of "bourgeois-friendly" Marxism, it reinforces a Metaphysical analysis of structures and not a dialectical one (do workers own the means of production? If no, it isn't Socialist! Therefore, a tiny 10 person worker cooperative is "true" Marxism etc etc).
A part of maturing my understanding of Marxism, in addition to actually reading theory, was learning how and why certain interpretations are more and less common in different areas, and why minds are so difficult to change. Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of "Brainwashing" was really eye-opening in that regard. I refuse to believe the likes of the MWoG crowd are "too stupid" to understand Marxism, the sadder truth is that it's a willful choice to reject alternative viewpoints despite lengthy sources and careful argumentation, and to respond to such with hatred. That's why they hide behind MWoG, rather than engaging openly, and watching the "leftists" get along with far-right gamergate afficianados in their collective hatred of Marxists is a bonding opportunity to affirm their own moral superiority. They license because they want to feel superior, which coincides with their western-centric "leftism."
You're correct, at the end of the day your analysis is what you work for and defend, and they have solidly chosen Western Hegemony, the same conclusion of the US establishment and the Imperialists that benefit from it. They choose this side because entertaining the mere idea that they may not be on the side of a "lesser evil" gets in the way of deeply embedded western chauvanism, it's an aristocratic worldview that is very characteristic of Orwell, Chomsky, and other "leftists" uplifted and lionized by the bourgeoisie and taught in bourgeois schooling day in and day out.
The positive side is that since they have chosen this path, they can be eventually convinced otherwise, but only when they believe they can personally benefit from it, even subconsciously. That's why it's important for AES to succeed, so that this becomes more and more irrefutable.