Gwon Yul

Biography

Gwon Yul passed the civil examination at forty-six, late even by the standards of a system that rewarded patience, and was a middle-aged bureaucrat with no military reputation when the war began. He turned out to be Korea's best land commander, essentially because he understood two things the professionals did not: never fight the Japanese on open ground, and prepare the position before they arrive. He made his name at Haengju in March 1593, holding a hilltop earthwork with about 3,000 soldiers, monks, and civilians against roughly 30,000 Japanese attacking in nine successive waves. The defenders used hwacha — wheeled racks that fired over a hundred rocket-propelled arrows at once — and the slope made the arquebus far less decisive than it had been at Tangeumdae. The women of the fort carried stones to the walls in their aprons, which Korean still remembers in the phrase *haengju chima*. The Japanese abandoned Seoul within weeks. Gwon Yul was made commander-in-chief and spent the rest of the war doing what Korea could actually do: hold fortified ground, harass, and wait. He died in 1599, months after the last Japanese ship left.

Key Battles