The king had fled from Seoul. The court was making the arduous trek to Pyongyang. Half of Korea was already in Japanese hands.

Yi-Il, the very same man who had once tried to pass his negligence off to Yi-Sun-Shin, was the commander of the Korean Army.

His forces were routed in battle after battle

Essential fortifications and choke points were abandoned, surrendered with barely a fight. Then, in the battle of Chungju, the regular Korean forces under the command

of a man named Shin Rip were annihilated.

This is the moment that forces the king to abandon his capital.

This is the moment that leads many to fear that Korea as a nation may not survive.

But on the very same day that the king fled from his seat, Admiral

Yi was destroying the Japanese fleet in Okpo harbor. Hope for the nation lived in a handful of ships plying the coast.

For three weeks after Okpo,

Yi gathered charts, scouted out the enemy fleet, and waited for his secret weapon, the turtle ship, to arrive.

Then his spies reported to him that the Japanese were anchored at Sacheon

This was too near his personal headquarters for comfort, so it was time he tested out the turtle ship. It was time

he drove them off.

But when his tiny fleet of 26 ships arrived outside Sacheon, he saw that the Japanese arquebusiers had taken up positions along

the cliffs above the harbor. If he were to attack, they could pour down fire on his ships. He pondered this for a moment.

Then he sent a small detachment to sail within sight of the Japanese fleet. Once they were sure the Japanese had spotted them

they turned and fled and the Japanese gave chase, but the retreat was feigned. As soon as the Japanese fleet entered open water

Yi fell upon them with his entire force. His turtle ship plowed into the middle of the Japanese Armada.

Cannon fire rang out from all sides. Ships splintered and burned in the setting sun. The

Japanese tried to close in but they couldn't manage to board the covered turtle ship.

With the Korean Warships surrounding them, and the turtle ship in their midst,

the Japanese fought a hopeless battle until all 13 of the ships that had pursued the

Koreans to open water were at the bottom of the sea. Not a single Korean vessel was lost.

After the battle, as his commanders gathered for a debriefing,

Yi loosed his coat, pulled out a sword, and dug out a bullet that had lodged in his shoulder.

His sub-commanders were amazed. To maintain morale, Yi had let no one know that he'd been injured in the fight.

But as they all sat dumbfounded, Yi

simply began to brief them on what to do in case of a counter-attack. The next day

local fishermen reported to Yi that the Japanese were anchored at Dangpo and that their men were sacking the city.

Yi ordered his fleet to move with all haste. He would not let another Japanese slaughter

go unanswered.

When they reached the harbor city of Dangpo, he once again smashed through the enemy line with his turtle ship,

positioned it right next to the enemy

flagship, and buried shot after shot in its side. With his turtle ship in their midst, the enemy couldn't maneuver. And because the turtle ship

had heavy guns on all sides, it couldn't be flanked. It

simply loosed salvo after salvo at everything around it. And while the turtle ship caused chaos, the rest of the Korean ships

surrounded the Japanese and trapped them in the harbor. At the height of the battle, one of Yi Sun-Shin sub commanders Quan Jun stood upon

the deck of his vessel, drew his bow, and loosed an arrow at the enemy admiral. The shot found its mark. Two of his men

then lept upon the enemy flagship and cut off the Japanese admiral's head.

Seeing their commander's head held aloft, the Japanese were thrown into a panic. Command broke down. And in the chaos,

Yi's ships sank the Japanese vessels one by one. As night fell and the Koreans withdrew, not a single Japanese ship remained.

Two days later, another Korean fleet, a fleet that was supposed to have joined them before any of this began

but ran behind, finally rendezvoused with Yi, bringing his squadron up to 51 ships in total. With this larger force,

he began to chase down rumors of another anchored Japanese fleet sacking a Korean town. The rumor turned out to be true and again

Yi pounced upon the Japanese while they were disorganized plundering a town. Again,

Yi sent his turtle ship into their midst and again, he used a feigned retreat to lure them out into open water. Although this time

he did it to keep the japanese from fleeing to shore if they were defeated. Again they followed and again upon

his signal, his fleet turned upon their pursuers. Again the Japanese admiral fell in the battle and Japanese morale broke.

Again the Koreans trapped the fleeing vessels and again the Japanese fleet,

26 ships in all, was destroyed without a single loss for Yi's forces. Turtle ship was OP.

Upon hearing of all this, Hideyoshi was furious.

He was so close to conquering Korea. His men had taken

Pyongyang. The Korean Court had been driven all the way to a tiny border village. Any further and the king of Korea wouldn't even be

on Korean soil

anymore. There was only one province he had not yet been able to overrun,

Jeolla, where Yi was based. And without control of the sea, he couldn't resupply his massive army in the field.

Yi must be destroyed. The order was given.

There would be no more land raids from his navy until Yi's fleet was at the bottom of the Tsushima Strait.

He ordered his admirals to pool their forces and to form a massive fleet to sweep aside this admiral that was causing him so much

pain. The three main Japanese admirals were to gather their fleets in Busan. But the admiral with the largest fleet,

Wakisaka Yasuharu, decided that bringing the fleet's together was taking too long. Side note, if you watched our Sengoku Jidai series,

this is one of the men who would eventually betray Ishida at the battle of Sekigahara.

Anyway. Eager for glory and unwilling to wait for the rest of the Japanese forces, he set out with his

73 ships. I mean why wait. He had 73 of the best ships in the Japanese fleet, and he knew Yi's Armada, however devastating

they might have been so far, was a small force.

But Yi hadn't been idle after his last battle.

He'd been drilling his men in new tactics, and constructing additional ships. With these new additions, his fleet now numbered

56 and most importantly with two new turtle ships he could bring to bear. On July 7th

1592 a local farmer came to tell Yi that he had seen a huge Japanese

Armada, at least 70 ships strong, in the Gyeonnaeryang strait. Yi had his fleet there by the next day.

Knowing that he couldn't maneuver in the strait, Yi sent out six of his ships to lure the Japanese and sure enough the entire

Japanese Force followed at all haste but this time the Japanese faced yet another surprise

This technique of luring out the Japanese had been working so well that Yi had trained his men in a special formation called the cranes

Wing where they would form a U around the enemy vessels that chased his ships compressing them from all sides

Making them easy targets and leaving them no room to maneuver the cranes wing

Descended the sound of Cannon fire ripped the air one of the largest naval battles in world history raged for hours

but when the smoke cleared

47 of the Japanese ships were sunk and 12 were captured

Only 14 of them escaped to the Harbor at Busan and still not a single Korean ship was lost the next day

Yi was informed of the location of the other two admirals fleets

they were anchored together at Angolpo Yi saw the

Opportunity for a decisive blow and so he set his vessels fresh off the last battle towards another attack this time though

No matter what he tried the japanese refused to be lured out of their position so Yi, sent

His ships in in small assault squads using their superior range to hammer the largest of the japanese ships then moving clear

So another squad could circle in and fire the battle was long and bloody though still none of Yi ships were sunk

between the action outside of Gyeonnaeryang and the Battle of Angolpo

Hundreds of his sailors were wounded it was the most damage the Japanese had done to i's fleet to date

But the majority of the Japanese fleet in the harbor was destroyed

Only a few ships remained and these

Yi ordered not to be touched because many of the Japanese

Soldiers had fled to the nearby shore and as he said

Many Brigands escaped into the mountains where local inhabitants have taken refuge if all the japanese ships were to be burned the brigands would massacre

Korean citizens and revenge as he expected

Instead of slaughtering the peasants in the hills the japanese boarded their remaining boats and slipped away in the night

six days later upon hearing the news of these

calamitous defeats

Hideyoshi ordered all offensive naval operations to cease from now on the Japanese

Navy would only guard the passage to Busan and so with one stroke

He destroyed all of Hideyoshi

hopes for Invading China

And without being able to resupply from the sea even the Japanese efforts on the Korean peninsula

Were in Jeopardy the supply lines to the forces occupying Pyongyang were sorely stretched and pursuing the Korean court any further became

Effectively impossible though the Korean army had been beaten on land time and time again

Yi, had saved Korea

But the war wasn't over join us next time for Yi's attempt to land a finishing blow

treachery and perhaps the greatest last stand in Naval history

(Music)