Noryang, the Last Sea
Wind, campfire and river sounds change with every scene, and the music follows the story.
In 1597, Yi Sun-sin, who had been falsely accused and thrown into prison, learned of his mother’s death on the road of “baegui jonggun” — following the army without rank, as a common soldier. Meanwhile, the Joseon navy under Won Gyun was crushed at Chilcheollyang, and when Yi Sun-sin was once again made Naval Commander of the Three Provinces (Samdo Sugun Tongjesa), he had just twelve ships left. In the ninth month of that year, at Myeongnyang (Uldolmok), he held back 133 Japanese ships with thirteen. But a month later, his third son Myeon, who had stayed to guard the family home in Asan, was killed by Japanese swords.
Characters
1598, age fifty-four
Came to help Joseon
Age twenty
Coming to rescue Konishi
(fictional character)
Morning of the 19th day of the 11th month, 1598, off Gwaneumpo in Namhae.
Over the smoke-filled sea, the drum of the Joseon flagship boomed on without pause. None of the men fighting knew what that drumbeat was hiding.
The story goes back three months.
In the eighth month of 1598, Toyotomi Hideyoshi of Japan died.
Seven years had passed since they invaded Joseon. Keeping his death secret, the Japanese army tried to slip quietly out of Joseon.
At Waegyo Fortress in Suncheon, on the southern coast, more than 14,000 of Konishi Yukinaga’s troops were trapped.
Yi Sun-sin’s Joseon navy and the Ming navy under Chen Lin were blocking the sea.
With his escape cut off, Konishi sent Chen Lin a sword, wine and silk, asking him to open the way.
an enemy who wants to go home?
must not
speak of peace.
Our sworn foe
cannot go free!
But meanwhile, a small boat of Konishi’s slipped out to sea and asked Shimazu Yoshihiro, at Sacheon, for rescue.
On the evening of the 18th day of the 11th month, more than 500 ships led by Shimazu and other commanders began moving toward Noryang.
We go to Noryang first.
Yi Sun-sin lifted the blockade off Suncheon and sailed across the night sea to the Noryang narrows — more than 80 Joseon ships and more than 300 Ming ships.
Beside the flagship’s great drum was Makdong, a fifteen-year-old drummer boy. His father had not come back from the sea at Chilcheollyang the year before.
last year.
the men will not be afraid.
Whatever happens, do not stop the drum.
A year earlier, on the 14th day of the 10th month of 1597 — the day he learned of his son Myeon’s death — Yi Sun-sin wrote this in his diary.
It would be right for me to die and you to live,
yet you have died, and I have lived —
what could be more wrong than this?
Heaven and earth went dark, he wrote, and even the sun lost its light. Yet even after that, he never stopped fighting.
Midnight, the 18th day of the 11th month.
Aboard his ship, Yi Sun-sin washed his hands and knelt.
Yi Sun-sinIf only I can destroy this enemy, I will die without regret.
At that moment, a great star fell into the middle of the sea.
All who saw it thought it strange, the Haengnok recorded.
Around two in the morning on the 19th day of the 11th month.
Into the narrow Noryang channel
came more than 500 Japanese ships.
Out of the darkness, lantern-lit ships came on without end.
Fire arrows covered the sky, and the cannons spat flame.
With the wind at its back, the Joseon fleet burned the enemy ships with flaming brushwood and arrows.
The sea burned.
Between the Joseon and Ming ships, burning Japanese ships tangled together and broke apart.
In that firelight, the night sea was as bright as day.
As day began to break, Chen Lin’s ship was surrounded by the enemy. They began to climb aboard.
Turn the ship!
Deng Zilong, the seventy-year-old Ming veteran, fought to the very end on his burning ship and died. Several Joseon commanders fell as well.
Thinking it was a way out to the open sea, the fleeing Japanese ships crowded into Gwaneumpo. It was a dead-end inlet.
With no way left to escape, the enemy fought back to the death.
Yi Sun-sin stood at the bow, leading the battle.
Then a bullet came flying and pierced the left side of his chest.
Yi Sun-sinThe battle is at its height.
Yi Sun-sinDo not say… that I am dead.
The 19th day of the 11th month, 1598. He was fifty-four.
His eldest son Hoe and his nephew Wan choked back their sobs. If they wailed for him now, the men would falter, and the enemy would seize the moment.
Raise the flag!
Pursue them to the end!
The two carried the body into the cabin, then went on waving the flag and urging the men to fight. Not even his closest commanders knew.
Makdong beat the drum. Tears blinded him, but his drumsticks never stopped.
do not stop the drum.
Not until midday did the battle end. More than 200 Japanese ships had been wrecked or burned.
Shimazu barely escaped with the 50-odd ships he had left, and Konishi seized the moment to slip out by another channel.
When the battle was over, Chen Lin sailed up to the Joseon flagship to give his thanks.
and had come to save me—
how could you die?
And so he learned of the death. Three times Chen Lin threw himself down on the deck, wailing.
Only then did the soldiers know.
The whole army wailed, and the sound shook the sea.
The soldiers of Joseon and the soldiers of Ming wept together.
The drum fell silent, and on the sea only the sound of weeping remained.
Yi Sun-sin’s bier traveled by way of Gogeumdo to his home in Asan.
Wherever the bier passed, scholars and common people blocked the road, weeping and offering memorial rites.
The war that had lasted seven years was over.
His last words
held no worry for his own life,
only for those still fighting.
Forty-five years later, the kingdom gave him the name “Chungmu.”
A sijo he left behind.
Moonlit night on Hansan Isle; alone in the watchtower I sit,
my great sword at my side, lost in deep sorrow —
from somewhere, one note of a reed pipe tears at my heart.
— On moonlit Hansan Isle, as I sit alone in the watchtower with my great sword beside me, deeply troubled, the sound of a flute from somewhere breaks my heart.
