Ming China

[donilpark]

Trespasser said:

Nurhachi began his war against Ming from 1616. Nurhachi would not been able to begin his revolt had Ming's Northern frontier troop not been wiped out by the Japanese.

If you still doubt the effect of Yi Soon Shin's blockade, then let us consider "What if Yi Soon Shin wasn't a naval commander in 1592". What would have happened??? It's really simple, Konishi Yukinaka and Kato Kiyomasa would simply have driven into Ming, 100K more reinforcement arrived by the ship, wiped out Ming troops with their Samurai troops, sacked Beijing, and established the Ni Dynasty before 1600, it is that simple.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi had the most powerful troop in East Asia by late 16th century and no one could stop him, not Koreans, not Mings, and certainly not Manchus. What stopped Toyotomi's dream was Yi Soon Shin's blockade.

I don't follow the point of the discussion now.
Yes, we all agree that Yi Soonshin's exploits were glorious.
But for some reason, you seem to seperate his navy from the rest of Korean or Chinese 'troops' as you call it.
Why is that? As I keep saying repeatedly, navy is as much important to a war as infantry are.
I don't know why you are disregarding Korea's navy, far superior weapon technology, its castle construction and etc, all of which are Korea's strengths and keep insisting that Japan was the strongest army. Perhaps, only when you consider hand-to-hand combat, but as we all know, one cannot, simply cannot, wage war with skilled infantrymen alone. You need supply, which Yi Soonshin blocke on the sea and civil militia disturbed on land. You need good leaders, you need moral, you need good weapons and protective gears, and so on and on. If you can't secure any of these and fail, than your army was not strong. If Japan were to win the war, then they would have had to have built a better navy and raised better strategists. Strategists who could defeat Yi Soonshin. They couldn't, and it all counts!
We're not saying Yi Soonshin did nothing and that Korea and China could stop Japan entirely on land without him. Yi Soonshin contributed greately to stop the Japanese, for sure. But it's not like his navy is something that came out of nowhere to help Korea. His navy was as much a part of Korean army as any infantry on land was. I don't understand why you keep counting just the infantry and say that Japan had the strongest army and it would have captured Beijing had it not been Yi Soonshin.
After all, this thread is about whether China was more of help or the other way, not about whether Yi Soonshin was of help or not.

[donilpark]

florel said:

svetlana said:

i thought ming chinese men wore the sangtoo too!

Exactly !

If not sangtoo, then Kat.

[JPh]

"Toyotomi Hideyoshi had the most powerful troop in East Asia by late 16th century and no one could stop him, not Koreans, not Mings, and certainly not Manchus. What stopped Toyotomi's dream was Yi Soon Shin's blockade." - Tresspasser

So, Yi Soon Shin wasn't part of the Korean military? As Yi proved, it takes more than fighting on land to be an effective military. Yi was quite possibly the first military stratigist in Asia who understood the importance of naval supremacy. As shown by the drama, the Japanese were a no match against the Korean navy.

I think if you said Japanese were superior in infantry hand to hand combat, compared to Korean and Ming soldiers, then you'd probably have no argument.

As donilpark pointed out, Koreans on the other hand were better archers, and expert castle builders and defenders - as shown by battle of Jinju and battle of Hengju where Korean defenders drove off Japanese who were over 10 times the numeric superiority.

Clearly, Japanese lost because they were not the best military. Otherwise, they would have taken Korea (and forget about taking Ming China), but they didn't because they had poor military strategy and poor navy. Those are not the mark of the best miliary in Asia.

But by the late 19th century, Japan was the best military in Asia, which it used to start WWII with America.

[svetlana]

donilpark said:

If not sangtoo, then Kat.

sooo sexy!

[donilpark]

So, Yi Soon Shin wasn't part of the Korean military? As Yi proved, it takes more than fighting on land to be an effective military. Yi was quite possibly the first military stratigist in Asia who understood the importance of naval supremacy. As shown by the drama, the Japanese were a no match against the Korean navy.

Exactly. Having the trident really matters (no pun intended).
In fact, I would even go so far to say that in a way, having control of the sea is even more important than having soldiers more skilled at hand to hand combat, although it may depend on geography.

[ccwf]

jp said:

But all, as Bo said, be careful fo potential spoiilers, & list the episode #, and leave enough spaces/ a chace for people not to read the spoilers....

I'll suggest again that the admins and mods get together and change the strike-through button to spoiler-protect text instead of just striking it through. My post included the necessary code, and a follow-up post has an example of how spoiler-protected text would look with that change.

[TheBo]

Yes, that's all fine and good ccwf, but we want our posters to be responsible in the title for letting others know the episode # they will discuss. (I don't ask for the "spoiler" moniker--I figure, if you look ahead at episodes you haven't seen, you should expect to be spoiled--but others think it is necessary.) In any case, I'll make sure the mods and admins take a look at your suggestion and see if they can implement it.

Bo

[florel]

florel said:

I NEVER doubt of YSS's great achievement.
EVEN Ming Chineses KNEW that YSS's victories (and especially his victory at Myungryang) saved Ming Empire from the Japanese invasion. Wanli gave to YSS many gifts and accorded to him a honorific naval supreme commander title of Ming Empire. They were very grateful to him.

Emperor Wanli's gift to Admiral YSS


For a bigger photo :

www.tongyeong.pe.kr/contents/cu03.html

[BungalowDweller]

Tresspasser said:

Napoleon and Hitler lost in Russia not because French and Nazi armies wasn't strong enough, but because of logistic problems and weather.

The Russian winter undoubtedly turned the tide in the Russian's favor, but don't underestimate the Russian Red Army. Like the Koreans in this drama, They were the ones with the inferior weaponry, training, supplies, and numbers.

At the Russian front, retreat was simply not an option. Russian soldiers were commonly chained to their artillery and fired until they died.

Like in IYSS, the civilian population joined in the battle as warriors, medical personnel, spies, etc. And in Stalingrad, when the Russian army was no match for the Nazis, the Nazis were defeated by an outraged population in bloody house-to-house fighting.

Although the Nazis, like the Japanese, were considered the superior force, they were decisively defeated by a brave populace in what the Russians call "The Great War for the Fatherland".