Accuracy of the History Channel

I agree, Korean navy especially under LiShunChen played vital role during the invasion of  the Japanese, he didnt receive the honor of Korea's greatest national hero for no reason.

I think the same sort of thing cant be said to that of WW2 Sino-Japanese war, which someone have suggested that if it was not for participation of the Amercians and their decisive victory over Japan in the Asia-Pacific scene, then China could not have assured its own victory over Japan.

But thats little ignorant and simple-minded perhaps, as well before pearl habour, Chinese were already busy fighting the Japanese, and that some 80% of the Japanese military were deployed in China, even as the war with America got intense, the military deployed in China is still well over 70%. And thats probably why 75% of Japan's war dead during WW2 which's worshiped in the "famous" "Yasukuni Shrine" were killed by the Chinese.

And such man like LiShunChen deserves to be honored and celebrated, for he somewhat is the korean equivalent of the famous Chinese general YueFei(some Japanese see him as China's number 1 general), both were characterized by their bravery in face of strong enemy, brilliance in execution of military affairs, and both were patriots, thats no coincidence to see that both were "suspected" by the court and received unjust treatments, though Li perhaps is luckier than Yue, as Li was killed during battle, whereas Yue was arrested and executed by corrupted officals at execution ground, definitely not a soldier'way of death..

I am interested, do you have any links about Yue? I would like to read about him.

Agree with the Korean Ship.  Not Chinese.  Its a Turtle ship, not Ironclad.

There are many misinformation on the History Channel.  However, it is a good platform to learn about History of other countries.  But this incident and many others to follow should make all realize that in order to get a true picture of Historical events, one must get facts from various sources with different opinions to truly appreciate these historical events and inaccuracies.

Jiangwei

I don't know which is more hilarious -- calling it a CHINESE ironclad or saying ONE Chinese ironclad defeated the Japanese.

Can we report these things to History Channel?  I mean there are things that are debatable, and then there are obvious typos.

Well, History Channel is focused on the Occidental history, so you shouldn't expect to learn Asian history in an European historical site.

Well, the thing is that Turtle ships were modified versions of Pan-ok ships- ships that had 3 floors, high enough to prevent lower japanese ships from using bording tactics.  Actually Turtle ships were basically Pan-ok ships with a roof, plated with iron, with a carved dragon face in the front.

So after Yi got back from his undeserving exile, when he had only 13 ships, Nan-joong-il-kee (Yi's diary) mentions stuffs like how he repaired them and made turtle ships out of them.  The fact is that koreans just decided to use the term turtle ship and pan-ok interchangeably.  The real number of turtleships rebuilt - I am not sure - although if I am correct, there was at least one turtle ship in the last naval battle where Yi died.

My point was that after the destruction of the korean navy, the koreans decided to call the remaining ships turtle ships.  Not necessarily because they were, but who knows.  It just happened.  Some time after the destruction, there was a battle between around 200 japanese ships lured into a rocky fast current strait (Myong Ryang) with 13 ships (that survived the onslaught during the destruction), where Yi miraculously defeated the enemy ships.   There were no turtle ships there.

No-i wasn't sure.  Just looked it up and figured out that turtle ships weren't used during Noryang. 

But it's not like the ships were not cheap to build; Yi was actually building his ships out of his volunteers before and during the war, not by the government (he was basically running his own kingdom during the war, making food supplies, weapons, reparations and all that). Korean ships were flat on the bottom, making them able to land on sandy beaches- making all shores virtually dry docks.  Also back then, there weren't a lot of deforestation going on- right in front of the shore there would be a plentiful supply of trees available. 

And the iron was merely used on the roof cover.  It is argued that it were the use of pine trees; 73 percent of turtle ships were pine trees, often 12cm++ thick.  Unlike other trees these threes were fibrous.

Also, turtle ship's backbones were all made out of wood; they were fit like lego blocks rather than the usage of iron nails.  This made them effective sea rams, while for the japanese, not only would iron nails fall off during ships to ship collisions, it would rust in sea water, debilitating the ship as a whole in consecutive years.

Well, that's the basics of turtle ship. And they are called Kobukson (Go-book son in korean)

There were 3 turtle ships during the entire 7 year war.  Destroyed during Yi's exile.

During Young Jo (early-mid 1700's), korea had 14 turtle ships

During Jung Jo(late 1700's to 1800), korea had 40 turtle ships.