Black Corporation: Joseon [EN]: Chapter 9

Side Story 9. The 1592 Southern Sea Battle. (9)

The Japanese army and naval air force, launching their attack, were employing various underhanded tactics.

They had painted the undersides of their attacking aircraft the same color as the Imperial Army’s airships, and even the national insignia on the lower surfaces of the wings were changed from the traditional red circle to a dark gray.

As a result, the Imperial Army sentries who spotted the attacking force failed to recognize them immediately.

By the time the sentries, a beat or two late, realized they were Japanese and were frantically relaying urgent reports, the vanguard of the Japanese attack force was bypassing Mount Halla and entering Seogwipo.

“Target confirmed! The entire 2nd Mobile Fleet is present!”

At the shout of the bomber co-pilot carrying the commander, the commander hurriedly raised his binoculars to scan the harbor.

“The smoke…”

The commander focused on the smokestacks of the docked warships.

If the steam propulsion engines, the core power plants of the battleships, were running, there would be smoke—thick, dark columns of smoke—rising into the air.

However, only thin wisps of smoke were rising from the smokestacks of the warships docked in the harbor.

This meant they were maintaining only minimal power.

“In that case, it will take at least 30 minutes to raise the steam pressure enough to move!”

The commander, his face beaming with joy, opened the side window of the cockpit and fired a flare.

Bang!

The pilots of the attacking force, seeing the flare burst in the sky, shouted simultaneously.

“Attack signal!”

Confirming the signal, the attacking force immediately broke formation and rushed towards their assigned targets.

As soon as the attack began, the bomber carrying the commander climbed to a higher altitude to observe the overall situation.

Confirming the attacking force rushing towards its target, the 2nd Mobile Fleet, the commander shouted to the communications officer.

“Inform the homeland! Tora, Tora, Tora! (虎, 虎, 虎) [Tiger, Tiger, Tiger! A phrase invoking the power and fear associated with tigers in Japanese culture.]!”

“Yes, sir!”

The communications officer quickly tapped the key of the radio.

The ‘Tora’ shouted by the commander was a code filled with the meaning of wishing for Japan’s victory.

-Even now, the people of the Empire, especially those in the mainland, fear tigers the most.

If this operation succeeds, the people of the Empire will fear our Japan like a tiger.

* * *

The 2nd Mobile Fleet, caught in the surprise attack by the Japanese attacking force, was in complete chaos.

The twin-engine bombers of the Japanese army and navy, carrying torpedoes—the Japanese called them ‘self-propelled explosive bullets’ instead of torpedoes—flew in at low altitude and launched torpedoes at the sides of the docked battleships.

“Anyone who misses this is a fool who will be remembered in history!”

That was the shout of the Japanese pilots as they launched torpedoes at the Imperial battleships they were targeting.

Yi Sun-sin had predicted that the Japanese would use airships as their main force, but Won Gyun had made the opposite judgment.

“The explosive bullets carried by airships cannot inflict fatal damage on battleships! The only match for a battleship is another battleship!”

Won Gyun, expecting the Japanese main force to be battleships, designated the anchorage for the main battleships of the 2nd Mobile Fleet to the southeast of Saeseom Island.

-If we receive a report that the Japanese are approaching, the battleships must immediately start their engines and leave the harbor.

-If we dock the battleships at the berthing facilities built in Seogwipo Port, it will be difficult to leave without the help of tugboats.

-The passage between the pier facilities of Seogwipo Port and Saeseom Island, which is the main route, will be complicated enough with just destroyers and cruisers.

If we’re not careful, all the ships in the fleet will become entangled and unable to move.

This is the worst-case scenario.

-If we deploy the battleships along the southeastern coastline of Saeseom Island, the battleships can immediately escape to the sea.

-Deploy a group of destroyers at the pier closest to the entrance of the harbor.

Destroyers, which have the fastest time to start their engines and set sail, will be sufficient to escort the battleships.

-Although the cruisers, the second most powerful force, are positioned behind, their speed will allow them to join in time.

According to this decision, the seven battleships deployed in the 2nd Mobile Fleet were anchored along the southeastern coast of Saeseom Island.

Since there were no berthing facilities, the battleship crew members had no choice but to travel between the battleships and the pier via liaison boats.

And this decision by Won Gyun became a stroke of luck for the Japanese and a misfortune for the Imperial Navy.

Bang! Kwang! Bang!

The torpedoes dropped by the Japanese naval attack force, targeting the battleships, struck them directly.

The battleships, struck by the torpedoes, shook violently, and the battleship crew members, who had just woken up, fell to the floor or staggered.

“What’s going on?”

“Enemy attack! Enemy attack!”

“Damn it! Move!”

The Japanese attacking force’s targets were not only the battleships.

Torpedoes and bombs from the Japanese attacking force also fell on the destroyers and cruisers berthed at the pier.

Bang! Kwang!

Large and small explosions occurred everywhere, and soldiers caught in the explosions were thrown around like scarecrows.

The Japanese attacking force’s attack was not only concentrated on Seogwipo Harbor.

Soon, the Imperial Army’s airship bases located throughout Jeju Island began to experience the same situation.

However, the Imperial Army was the Imperial Army.

The Imperial Army soldiers, who had been flustered by the surprise attack, rushed to their assigned posts almost instinctively.

And, before long, flames began to be fired into the sky from various locations in and around Seogwipo Harbor and surrounding bases.

The attacking force commander, Shimazu Toyohisa, who was observing the situation from a high altitude, could not hide his surprise.

“They’ve already regained their senses? Amazing!”

‘They say the real strength of the Imperial Army lies in its soldiers, is that true? That’s not the appearance of moving under the command of a commander! They’re moving on their own!’

Shimazu’s judgment was accurate.

“Even so, it’s already too late!”

Shimazu scanned the overall situation with his binoculars and fired flares.

“Battleships first! Target the battleships!”

Following Shimazu’s decision, a group of bombers began to move, targeting the battleships.

* * *

Although they had suffered a surprise attack, the Imperial battleships were not easy opponents.

The crew members who remained on the battleships, who had been flustered by the first torpedo strike, soon regained their senses and rushed to their assigned posts.

But.

“We don’t have enough personnel!”

“It’s difficult with half the crew!”

In response, the commanders remaining on the battleships desperately racked their brains.

“First, reassign the gunners in charge of the main guns to the repair teams!”

“The main gun crews?”

“There’s no need to use the main guns in this situation! And they’ve been trained!”

“Understood!”

“The most urgent thing is the engine room! We need the engines and generators running to respond properly!”

“Yes, sir!”

Since Yi Hyang had built a new concept of warship, the Imperial Navy had been training all personnel, regardless of their specialty, in the skills to repair damage to the hull as a mandatory requirement.

In addition, the executive officer was to take command of the repair team in the event of an emergency.

With the addition of manpower and a system to the professionally trained repair team, the Imperial Navy’s warships were able to recover faster than the warships of other countries.

However, the situation did not improve easily.

The first problem was that there were only half the personnel, and the second problem was that they were docked in peacetime mode.

Thanks to the peacetime mode, the compartment doors that blocked the spaces between the compartments and passages of the battleships were left open, and seawater that had entered through the holes created by the torpedoes was filling the compartments of the battleships without restraint.

It was not easy to quickly block the rushing seawater with only half the personnel.

Even while the gunners of the anti-aircraft batteries on the deck were desperately trying to stop the Japanese attacking force, the battleships were slowly tilting to one side.

It wasn’t just the battleships. The destroyers and cruisers of the 2nd Mobile Fleet were facing similar situations.

In the midst of all this, there were those who were literally fighting fiercely.

The two battleships that had transferred from Yi Sun-sin’s 3rd Mobile Fleet to the 2nd Mobile Fleet were representative of this.

* * *

The captains of the battleships in question were also battleship faction [Those who believe battleships are the most important naval asset].

Whether it was because they were captains of battleships, or whether they became captains of battleships because they were battleship faction, it was hard to say.

However, the captains in question judged that Yi Sun-sin was militarily superior to Won Gyun, even though their faction was battleship faction.

This was because they had seen and experienced it over time.

Thanks to this, even after transferring to the 2nd Mobile Fleet, the two captains had been steadily maintaining contact with each other.

This was half voluntary and half forced.

In the eyes of the battleship captains who had been in the 2nd Mobile Fleet from the beginning, they were ‘rolling stones,’ and there was still not enough time to become close.

Thus, the two captains, who had become ‘rolling stones,’ met separately to continue discussing the current situation.

“Admiral Yi Sun-sin, that man is a bit rigid, but his eye for reading the situation is certain.”

“I agree. Admiral Won seems magnanimous, but he’s a bit uneasy.”

As time passed, their anxiety grew even greater after hearing rumors about the ‘Christmas Crisis Theory.’

To make matters worse, Won Gyun ordered ‘maintenance of peacetime posture,’ and they hurriedly put their heads together.

“I think Admiral Yi Sun-sin is right.”

“I think the same, but the problem is that we can’t tell them to take a defensive posture, can we?”

“That’s the problem.”

The command of the battleship was in the hands of the captain, so if the captain ordered it, they could maintain a defensive posture.

However, if they did, it was certain that they would be pushed out of Won Gyun’s favor immediately.

Even being the captain of a battleship was a high position, but it was human nature to want to climb higher if possible.

In a situation where they couldn’t be sure whether something would really happen on Christmas or not, if they were marked by Won Gyun, their promotion would be out of the question.

The two captains, who were worried about how to succeed in this precarious tightrope walk, soon found an answer.

“Instead of rotating half of the crew, let’s rotate only 1/3.”

“That’s good. As an excuse… Ah! ‘The ship is too old and requires a sufficient number of maintenance personnel’ would be good.”

“That’s very good!”

In this way, the two captains, who had secured the maximum number of personnel, gave another order.

-Unconditionally block the horizontal compartment doors below the waterline and use only vertical passages.

“Won’t the men have a hard time?”

The captains immediately answered to the chief officer’s point.

“Emperor Yi Hyang said, ‘A man’s life is in his lower body.’ Tell them to think of this as training their lower body.”

“…Yes.”

At the captain’s order, the crew grumbled but followed faithfully. It was an order, but the soldiers had also heard the ‘Christmas Crisis Theory’ in question.

“If Admiral Yi Sun-sin insisted so much, it’s almost certain that something will happen.”

“That’s right, that’s right. That man’s personality is a bit like that, but his eye for seeing the situation is great.”

In addition, the captains in question did not leave their ships at all.

“Don’t you want to go home?”

“I’m more comfortable here than at home. Do you know what’s more scary than tiger attacks and smallpox? My wife’s nagging. What’s even more scary is the sound of my wife untying her coat strings [implying she’s about to get serious]. Why aren’t you getting off?”

“Me too…”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk…”

* * *

Thanks to the captain and executive officer being on board, the battleships ‘Maesoseong’ and ‘Jingwanpo’ were able to respond quickly.

“Damage?”

“It’s bearable! Isn’t a battleship a ship that can withstand this much damage!”

Captain Oh Young-sik of Maesoseong, nodding slightly at the executive officer’s answer, surveyed the surrounding situation and continued to give orders.

“Engine room! When can we move!”

“We can move in 1 gak (about 15 minutes) [Gak is an old Korean unit of time measurement]!”

“Slow! Reduce it further!”

“I’ll try!”

“Communications room! Did you send a message!”

“I sent it!”

“Keep sending it until you get a response!”

“Yes, sir! Captain! Urgent message from Mokpo airship base confirmed! Mokpo has also been attacked!”

At the communications officer’s report, Oh Young-sik struck the armrest with his fist.

“Damn it! What? Japan gave up? Is this giving up! Stupid son of a bitch!”

Oh Young-sik, spewing curses at someone, did his best to survive.

While Oh Young-sik was giving orders, spewing all sorts of curses, the communications officer urgently reported.

“The 3rd Mobile Fleet is moving!”

* * *

Yi Sun-sin, having received the Emperor’s order, had been staying on the fleet’s flagship, the airship carrier ‘Usando (于山島),’ since then.

To be more precise, it was the communications room of Usando.

Usando was one of the newest airship carriers in the Empire. Thanks to this, Usando’s communications room contained the Empire’s most advanced wireless communication equipment.

As an aside, the crew members of Usando were very proud of their ship.

The fact that it was the newest warship also played a part, but the bigger reason was that its name was one of the ship names that Yi Hyang had designated in advance.

-I decided it so that some idiots living on the island wouldn’t talk nonsense.

Yi Hyang said this while designating Usando, and thanks to this, the Japanese were the ones who reacted most strongly to the word ‘Usando.’

In any case, with Yi Sun-sin staying on Usando, the 3rd Mobile Fleet was put on emergency alert.

All the warships belonging to the fleet were operating their engines so that they could raise their anchors and set sail at any time, and the supply officer was suffering from overwork every day.

“Anyway, that man is too sensitive, too sensitive. Doesn’t he know why there are words like ‘groundless fears’ and ‘too much is as bad as too little’!”

Even while grumbling like this whenever he had a chance, the supply officer faithfully continued to supply the fleet.

Not only the supply officer, but everyone in the fleet was suffering unexpected hardships, and then the Christmas in question arrived.

Everyone in the 3rd Mobile Fleet, regardless of their position, who knew the rumors very well thanks to the person involved, became as tense as possible.

Then, not long after the sun rose, the same urgent message was delivered to all the warships and headquarters communications room of the 3rd Mobile Fleet.

-Japanese army surprise attack. Jeju Island is under attack. This is not a drill.

Yi Sun-sin immediately jumped up from his seat at the urgent message that was being repeated continuously.

“The 3rd Mobile Fleet is setting sail!”

In response, the captain next to him immediately pointed out the problem.

“Your Excellency! The order has not yet been issued!”

“I have already received the Emperor’s order!”

When Yi Sun-sin mentioned the Emperor’s order, the captain immediately turned to the executive officer and ordered.

“Set sail! All hands to battle stations!”

“Yes, sir!”