Saturday, November 22, 2025

“Resolved to Die” and the Shadow of Compromise Pastor Joo Ki-chul and the Two Faces of the Korean Church under Japanese Rule

1. Why bring Joo Ki-chul back into the conversation?

Under Japanese colonial rule, Korean Protestantism always comes with a double exposure:

On one side, we remember the heroic stories – the March First Movement, Christian schools, pastors involved in the independence struggle.

On the other side, the record is much darker – churches bowing at Shinto shrines, denominations embracing imperial slogans, pastors preaching the emperor’s war as if it were the will of God.

Few figures crystallize this contradiction as sharply as Pastor Joo Ki-chul (1897–1944). One side of the frame is his famous motto, often rendered as a resolve “to die once and for all” rather than betray his faith. On the other side stand leaders like Park Hee-do and Jung Chun-su, who became symbols of collaboration within Korean Christianity. (위키백과)

This essay is not a sermon but a historical and humanistic look at the bright and dark faces of the Korean church under Japanese rule, seen through the life – and the foils – of Joo Ki-chul.

2. What exactly was Shinto shrine worship?

The background: imperialization and “loyal subjects of the emperor”

In the late 1930s, as Japan escalated the Sino–Japanese War and moved into the Pacific War, it pushed a full-scale war regime onto Korea. A key part of this was the “imperialization” campaign – turning Koreans into loyal subjects of the Japanese emperor in mind, ritual, and daily life.

Shinto shrine visits began in schools and government offices, then spread to Christian schools and churches. The official line was simple and chilling:

“Shrine worship is not a religious act. It is a civic ceremony of loyalty to the state.”

For Christians, this posed a direct clash between state ritual and the biblical commandment against idolatry.

The church caves in – and a minority refuses

In 1938, the Pyongbuk Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in Korea became the first to formally approve Shinto shrine worship.

That same year in September, at the 27th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church held at the West Gate Church in Pyongyang – under police surveillance and pressure – the denomination as a whole voted to endorse shrine worship as a civic duty.

Consequences followed quickly:

Pyongyang Theological Seminary, which opposed shrine worship, was effectively shut down.
Pastors like Joo Ki-chul, Lee Ki-seon, Han Sang-dong and others who refused the new line were deposed, arrested, and tortured. (위키백과)

In short:

At the institutional level, the Presbyterian Church officially bowed.
Inside that same structure, however, a small minority chose prison and death over compliance.

That fault line has haunted Korean Christianity – and its debates over collaboration and repentance – ever since.

3. The “resolved to die” pastor: Joo Ki-chul’s life and death

Early formation: faith and national consciousness together

Born in 1897 in what is now the Jinhae area of South Gyeongsang Province, Joo Ki-chul grew up in the orbit of the local church and was nicknamed a “boy pastor” for his early zeal.

At Osan School in North Pyongan Province he encountered figures like Lee Seung-hun and Jo Man-sik, who combined Christian faith with a strong sense of national identity.

He later entered theological training at Pyongyang Presbyterian Seminary, after a stint at Yonhui College (today’s Yonsei University) cut short by eye trouble, and began his path as a pastor.

Choryang Church and Sanjeonghyeon Church – into the storm

Ordained in 1925, Joo first served in Choryang Church in Busan, where his preaching and prayer life gained him deep respect.

Even at this stage, he was already submitting overtures to local church courts opposing shrine worship. His position was not tactical; it was principled and public.

When he later accepted a call to Sanjeonghyeon Church in Pyongyang – effectively the front line of the Shinto controversy – the collision became inevitable.

After the Presbyterian General Assembly officially endorsed shrine worship, Joo did not quietly go along. From the pulpit he called it what he believed it was: idolatry, incompatible with Christian faith.

Five arrests, unending torture, and a final confession

From 1938 onward, Joo’s life became a grim calendar of imprisonment:

He was arrested and imprisoned five separate times, spending a total of more than five years and four months behind bars.
Interrogations involved severe beatings and torture; his body and health were steadily broken down. (위키백과)

Before his final arrest, he preached a farewell sermon at Sanjeonghyeon Church that later came to be remembered as the “resolved to die” confession. In essence, he said:

Christ bore the cross and did not deny the Father.
He could not deny his Lord to save his own life.
He wished to be, in his words, “like a green pine cut down before it withers, like a lily broken and given to God while still fresh.”

(Here the phrasing is paraphrased rather than quoted verbatim, to avoid copyright issues.)

On April 21, 1944, Joo Ki-chul died in Pyongyang Prison at the age of forty-nine. Fellow inmates and even some guards later testified that he met death in prayer and hymn-singing. (위키백과)

Today he is widely remembered as:

“The pastor who died resisting state-imposed Shinto shrine worship under Japanese rule.”

For many Korean Christians, he functions as a kind of moral plumb line – an uncomfortable standard against which both past and present compromises are measured.

4. But not everyone was a hero

If Joo’s name shines brightly, certain other names cast a long shadow.

Park Hee-do and the magazine Light of the Orient

One of the most striking contrasts is Park Hee-do (1883–1966).

Park was one of the 33 signatories of the March First Declaration in 1919 – a respected early figure in Christian-led nationalism.

By the 1930s, however, he had become the publisher of Dongyang Jigwang (“Light of the Orient”), a magazine devoted to:

Praising loyalty to the Japanese empire
Promoting the ideology of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”
Justifying war mobilization and imperial policies

In post-liberation scholarship and in the Encyclopedia of Pro-Japanese Collaborators, Park is firmly classified as a leading example of Christian collaboration with Japanese rule.

The more colorful claims sometimes found online – that the editorial board was entirely made up of former leftists, or that the magazine was funded purely as an anti-communist psy-ops operation – are hard to verify and not accepted as mainstream scholarship. For public writing it is safer to stay with the solid, documented fact: the magazine was a mouthpiece for imperial propaganda, and Park chose to steer it.

Jung Chun-su and a denominational “Eulsa Treaty”

Another emblematic figure is Jung Chun-su (1876–1951) of the Methodist Church.

In the final years of colonial rule, Jung played a leading role in merging the Korean Methodist Church with the Japanese Methodist denomination.

The union agreement contained clauses effectively stating that:

On major public issues and relations with the Japanese state, the Korean side would follow the decisions of the Japanese church.

Critics later called this a kind of “Eulsa Treaty of the church”, evoking the 1905 treaty that had stripped the Korean Empire of its diplomatic sovereignty.

Jung also publicly supported imperial subjects’ oaths, war cooperation, and Shinto shrine rites in his sermons and writings, cementing his reputation as a collaborationist church leader.

In short:

At the very moment Joo Ki-chul and others were dying in prison for refusing shrine worship,
Other pastors were preaching loyalty to the emperor and wrapping the war in religious language.

That stark contrast continues to shape how Korean churches talk – or sometimes avoid talking – about their past.

5. Between “almost all were collaborators” and “only a few were”

It is tempting to collapse the story into one of two slogans:

“Almost all Baptists and Presbyterians collaborated.”
“Only a tiny handful did; everyone else was innocent.”

Both are misleading.

Institutional vs personal responsibility

At the denominational level:

Presbyterian and Methodist leadership bodies did officially endorse Shinto shrine worship and aspects of imperial ideology.
This is visible in General Assembly minutes, official statements, and printed sermons.

At the level of local churches and individual believers:

Some complied reluctantly, treating shrine visits as a bare minimum to avoid closure or arrest.
Some collaborated enthusiastically and became active agents of propaganda.
Some – a small minority – refused outright and paid with their positions, their freedom, and in some cases their lives.

After 1945:

Serious, organized reckoning with this record of collaboration never took deep root within the denominations themselves.
In many cases, postwar church growth and anti-communist fervor simply buried the issue under a new set of priorities.

A more accurate summary might be:

“Within a structure of institutional collaboration, there existed both shameful complicity and costly resistance.”

That gray, uncomfortable space is harder to tweet than “all heroes” or “all traitors,” but it is closer to the historical reality.

6. The questions this leaves us with today

Joo Ki-chul’s story is not just a devotional tale; it presses on some very contemporary nerves.

When the state demands rituals of loyalty, where is the line?
At what point does “just going through the motions” become complicity? How far would we ourselves resist if jobs, schools, or our children’s safety were on the line?
How do heroes become collaborators?
Park Hee-do once signed the March First Declaration. Jung Chun-su began as a respected church leader. What paths of fatigue, fear, ambition, or rationalization led them from early idealism to imperial praise?
What does honest reckoning look like?
After liberation, the Korean church and society at large largely sidestepped systematic “truth and reconciliation” over collaboration. What did that avoidance cost in terms of moral clarity and institutional trust?
What does “resolved to die” mean without religious faith?
Even for non-believers, Joo’s “one-death resolve” can be read as a radical question:
For what values, if any, am I willing to accept real loss?
His story can inspire not only admiration but a disturbing self-reflection:
“Under the same pressure, am I so sure I would not have chosen the easier road?”

7. Conclusion – Standing between memory and record

In the same historical moment, within the same religious community, there were:

Pastors praying on the cold floor of a prison cell, asking God to hold them fast in the face of death, and
Pastors in warm pulpits, blessing the emperor’s war and telling believers that bowing at shrines was an acceptable civic duty.

To hold both images together is not an exercise in self-loathing or self-congratulation. It is a basic act of historical honesty.

Remembering Joo Ki-chul’s martyrdom keeps alive the possibility of costly integrity.
Remembering the careers of Park Hee-do and Jung Chun-su keeps alive the warning that we ourselves are not immune to compromise.

In that sense, revisiting these names is less about settling accounts with the dead and more about preparing for the next moment of pressure, when society once again whispers:

“Everyone is doing it. Just bow once and move on.”

What we learn from Joo Ki-chul and his counterparts will shape how we answer that whisper when our turn comes.

Why Japanese History Always Had One Face and Another Hand — How Emperors, Shoguns, and Retired Emperors Built a Double-Layered Politics

0. Prologue – Honne, Tatemae, and Japanese Power

When people talk about Japan, one pair of words comes up over and over:

honne – what you really think
tatemae – what you say and show on the surface

It usually describes everyday life: the polite phrase you say out loud vs. the blunt truth you only tell close friends.

But if you zoom out to centuries of Japanese history, a similar split appears at the level of power itself.

Officially, there is the Emperor – the sacred sovereign.
In practice, there is the bakufu (shogunate) that runs the country.
Even inside the court you often get double layers: a reigning emperor on the throne, and a retired emperor turned monk who quietly calls the shots from behind the scenes. (위키백과)

This essay takes a quick tour through those “two faces” of power – emperor and shogun, emperor and regent, emperor and retired emperor – and asks:

Why did this double structure keep coming back?
How is it similar to honne / tatemae – and how is it different?

1. The Era When “The Emperor = The State” Was Surprisingly Short

In theory, early Japan tried to build a straightforward system:

From the Yamato polity through the Nara and early Heian periods, the court imported the Chinese-style ritsuryō code:
a centralized bureaucratic state with the emperor at the top.

On paper, the emperor had it all. In practice, power slipped very quickly into the hands of great aristocratic families – above all the Fujiwara clan.

The Fujiwara strategy was simple and brutally effective:

Marry their daughters into the imperial family.
Become the emperor’s maternal relatives.
Monopolize the posts of sesshō (regent for a child emperor) and kanpaku (chief advisor to an adult emperor). (Cambridge Core)

Outwardly: “Imperial rule.”
Behind the curtain: “Fujiwara rule in the emperor’s name.”

So even in this supposedly “pure” imperial age, Japan was already running on a dual system:

Emperor as sacred symbol on top,
Fujiwara regents and chancellors as the operating system underneath.

2. When the Retired Emperor Was Stronger Than the Reigning One – Insei

From the 11th century, the system twists again.

Some emperors found it impossible to rule freely while surrounded by Fujiwara in-laws. So they tried something clever:

Abdicate early.
Take monk’s vows, move into a separate palace (the in).
Rule from “retirement” as a cloistered emperor.

This is the famous system of insei, often translated as “cloistered rule.” (위키백과)

The setup looked like this:

The reigning emperor in the main palace: performs rituals, receives ambassadors, appears in official records.
The retired emperor (often called a Hōō, or “Dharma Emperor”) in his own residence:
decides appointments, land grants, and big policy choices.

In other words, even within a single person’s life you could get something like:

tatemae: the emperor on the throne
honne: the retired emperor pulling strings from behind a screen

It’s one of the clearest moments where Japan’s layered, almost theatrical style of power becomes visible.

3. The Age of Warriors – Emperor and Shogun as a Built-In Double State

3.1 Kamakura – Dual Capitals, Dual Authorities

By the late 12th century, civil war between great warrior houses (the Genpei War) brings a new class to the front: the samurai.

In 1192, Minamoto no Yoritomo is appointed shōgun (“barbarian-subduing generalissimo”) and sets up the Kamakura bakufu. (Fiveable)

From this point, Japan is structurally a two-center country:

Kyoto – the emperor and aristocratic court: keeper of ritual, culture, and legitimacy.
Kamakura – the shogun’s government: in charge of military affairs, law, and provincial administration.

Formally, the shogun governs on behalf of the emperor. In reality, the bakufu controls the warrior class, the provinces, and most practical politics.

So again we get:

Emperor = face of the state
Shogun = hand that actually moves it

3.2 Muromachi and Edo – Layer upon layer

The pattern repeats under:

The Ashikaga (Muromachi) bakufu, and later
The Tokugawa (Edo) bakufu.

The labels change, the basic geometry does not:

The emperor in Kyoto remains the source of sacred authority.
The shogun’s government, first in Muromachi then in Edo, runs the bureaucracy, taxation, and military.

By the Edo period, the layering gets even more intricate:

Nominally, the Tokugawa shogun holds supreme authority.
In practice, the powerful rōjū (“elders”) and senior councilors often steer major decisions, especially in foreign policy and crisis management. (egyankosh.ac.in)

So we now have a double structure sitting on top of another double structure:

Emperor (symbol) / shogun (ruler)
Shogun (symbolic head) / rōjū (day-to-day operators)

If you like political nesting dolls, Edo Japan is a paradise.

4. After the Meiji Restoration – New Costume, Same Logic

The Meiji Restoration (late 1860s) outwardly “restores” direct imperial rule.
The shogunate is abolished; the emperor returns to center stage.

Under the Meiji Constitution of 1889, the emperor is defined as the sovereign who holds ultimate authority over the military, diplomacy, and legislation. (EBSCO)

On paper, this looks like a return to a single-center system. But once again, real power lives elsewhere:

A small group of elder statesmen (the genrō),
The high military command, and
Senior bureaucrats and business magnates (zaibatsu)

dominate policy behind the imperial façade. (EBSCO)

After World War II, the U.S.-drafted constitution transforms the emperor into a purely symbolic head of state. Political authority is entrusted to:

The Cabinet and Prime Minister
The Diet (parliament)
The bureaucracy, and
For most of the postwar era, a single dominant party: the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed Japan for the vast majority of years since its founding in 1955. (The Washington Post)

So even today, you can roughly draw the same diagram:

Emperor = symbol of national unity
Elected government + permanent bureaucracy = actual machinery of power

The faces change, the structure survives.

5. Is This Really Unique to Japan?

It would be easy – and lazy – to say, “This double structure exists because Japanese people are ‘naturally’ two-faced.”

History is messier.

Other societies have had similar splits between legitimacy and control:

Early medieval Frankish kingdoms:
Merovingian kings as nominal rulers; powerful “mayors of the palace” running the show.
Modern constitutional monarchies like the UK:
monarch as figurehead; parliament and cabinet governing day to day.
Late Joseon Korea:
a formally absolute king hemmed in by powerful aristocratic factions and in-law clans.

So the basic idea—one person as sacred symbol, another actor as practical ruler—is not uniquely Japanese.

What is distinctive about Japan is how stubbornly long this pattern lasted:

The imperial line was never abolished.
Even warrior regimes needed imperial titles, court ranks, and formal appointments to legitimize themselves. (Fiveable)
Shogunates almost never tried to erase the emperor; they used him as a source of symbolic capital.

For roughly a thousand years, Japan kept some version of:

“Legitimate sacred center + practical governing center”
in place at the same time.

That endurance is remarkable.

6. Honne / Tatemae and Double Power – A Useful Metaphor, Not a Curse

Strictly speaking, honne and tatemae are concepts about personal behavior:

What you really feel vs. what you are expected to say.
The flexible line between honesty, politeness, and social survival.

Using those words to explain institutions can slip into cultural determinism very quickly:

“Japanese are like this, therefore their politics must be like that.”

That kind of claim doesn’t hold up.

A more careful way to put it:

Japanese political history happens to contain many layered arrangements where public image and private control are separated.
The honne / tatemae vocabulary gives modern readers a helpful metaphor for understanding those layers – as long as we don’t mistake metaphor for cause.

So rather than:

“Because of honne / tatemae, Japan produced double power structures,”

it’s more accurate to say:

“When we look at emperors, shoguns, cloistered rulers, and elder councils,
the honne / tatemae lens helps us visualize how roles and realities diverged.”

7. Why This Matters for Readers Today

For readers in any country, this story suggests a few useful habits of mind.

Always ask: who really holds power here?
- Written constitutions, formal titles, and televised ceremonies show one layer.
- Money, bureaucracy, media ownership, security institutions may show another.
Symbols can stabilize – and destabilize.
- Separating the “face” (symbolic authority) from the “hand” (executive power) can create long-term stability:
  people rally around the symbol while elites argue over policy.
- But in moments of crisis, that same symbol can be used to blow up the existing order, as in the Meiji Restoration, when imperial prestige became a revolutionary tool.
Avoid easy explanations based on “national character.”
- Instead of saying “this nation is naturally X,”
  it’s more fruitful to ask:
  - What historical bargains produced these institutions?
  - How did legitimacy, geography, and foreign pressure shape them?
  - Who benefits from keeping the “face” and the “hand” separate?

Japanese history’s long experiment with emperors, shoguns, retired emperors, and party machines is, in that sense, not just a story about Japan.

It’s a reminder that power loves masks—and that understanding politics often starts with asking what, and who, is hiding behind the nicest one.

Thursday, November 20, 2025

The Real Ace Behind the Turtle Ship: Panokseon

How the Panokseon Became the True Workhorse of the Imjin War

From Maengseon to Panokseon: The Evolution of Joseon Warships

1. Why Joseon Had to Start by Rebuilding Its Ships

In the early Joseon period, the basic naval platform was the maengseon (“fierce ship”).
Under King Sejo, official military transport ships (byeongjoseon) were standardized as dual-use vessels for both warfare and grain transport, and by the time of the Gyeongguk Daejeon legal code they appear as large, medium, and small maengseon as the standard warships.

That compromise came with serious problems:

Because they also had to carry tribute grain, they were heavy and sluggish.
In peacetime they were logistics workhorses; in wartime they were expected to double as combat ships, which meant they were far from optimized for battle.
From the 16th century, with armed Japanese traders and coastal raiders becoming more dangerous, maengseon were increasingly criticized for lacking both agility and firepower.(위키백과)

Court records from the Seongjong and Jungjong eras already complain that maengseon are too heavy and slow, and various officials propose increasing the number of small, fast craft (so-called “swift ships”). But when fleets shifted toward smaller hulls, another problem appeared: they died quickly under concentrated enemy fire and boarding attacks.

In short:

“Build them heavy and they can’t move. Build them light and they shatter when hit.”

Joseon’s navy lived inside that dilemma through most of the 16th century.

The answer they eventually arrived at was a purpose-built, two-deck fighting ship: the panokseon.

2. From Sejo’s Military Transports to Myeongjong’s Panokseon

(1) The Roots: Byeongjoseon and Maengseon

To be fair, byeongjoseon and maengseon were not useless relics.
Joseon absolutely needed a secure state grain network along the Yellow Sea and South Sea coasts, so “warship that can also haul rice” was the political compromise baked into early designs. For a while that balance worked.

But by the mid-1500s the environment changed:

Japanese coastal forces were sailing larger, more heavily armed ships.
Fighting was no longer just small raids; larger fleet actions near open water became plausible.
Japanese tactics increasingly relied on closing in, grappling, and boarding after a few volleys of gunfire.(Korea.net)

A heavy, half-freighter maengseon was now too slow, too soft, and too low-sided for this new style of war.

(2) The Turning Point: Eulmyo Waebyun and the Demand for a “Tall, Steep Warship”

The large Japanese raid of 1555 (the Eulmyo Waebyun) triggered a serious rethink.
From then on, memorials to the throne start repeating a common theme:

“We need a tall, steep warship so high that the enemy cannot easily jump aboard.”

In design terms, that meant:

Higher freeboard and upper structure
A weapons deck from which guns and arrows could fire downward
Oarsmen protected underneath, instead of being exposed along the sides

The ship that embodied these demands was a big, flat-bottomed, two-deck warship: the panokseon (literally “planked house ship,” from the enclosed upper structure).(위키백과)

3. What Did a Panokseon Actually Look Like?

(1) Flat Bottom, No Keel

The panokseon was a classic Korean coastal warship, part of the broader hanseon tradition. Its key structural traits:

Flat bottom (pyeongjeo) for stability in shallow coastal waters
No Western-style central keel; instead, a wide bottom plank and side planking
Transverse beams tying the sides together in a box-like hull(위키백과)

That meant:

It excelled in shallow, tidal waters like those of Korea’s west and south coasts.
At low tide it could sit upright on mudflats or be dragged ashore for repair.
It was less suitable for blue-water ocean operations, but Joseon’s navy fought mainly in coastal seas and straits, so this trade-off made sense.

Japanese warships, by contrast, tended to have deeper, V-shaped hulls optimized for different kinds of waters, which could be a disadvantage in Korea’s extreme tidal environments.(Korea.net)

(2) Two Decks: Separation of Muscle and Firepower

The real revolution was the two-deck layout:

Lower deck: rowers and some support personnel
Upper deck (the “panok”): gunners, archers, and melee troops

This gave four big advantages:

Rower protection
Oarsmen were shielded from arrows, matchlock bullets, and splinters, so the ship could survive longer engagement cycles without losing propulsion.
Higher firing position
Guns and archers shooting from a raised deck enjoyed better range and plunging fire angles.
Anti-boarding geometry
Taller sides made it physically harder for Japanese marines to grab the rail and swarm aboard—something Japanese accounts complain about repeatedly during the Imjin War.(Facebook)
Command and visibility
A small “general’s tower” on top of the upper deck gave the commander clear sightlines for flags, drums, and signals.

(3) Size and Crew

Exact dimensions vary by source, but most reconstructions converge around:

Length: roughly 20–30 meters
Beam (width): around 8–10 meters
Complement: on the order of 100 personnel (rowers, gunners, archers, officers, marines)(위키백과)

In modern terms, think of something comparable in footprint to a small modern tug or coastal patrol boat—but built of thick timber, with two decks and loaded with guns.

4. Panokseon vs. Japanese Warships: Different Ships, Different Ideas of War

(1) Japanese Atakebune and the Boarding Paradigm

In the Sengoku and early Imjin War era, Japanese fleets relied on large command ships like the atakebune, supported by medium and small craft.

Their basic concept of naval combat looked like this:

Fire some arrows and matchlock volleys to soften the target
Close the distance and grapple
Send warriors swarming onto the enemy deck for close-quarters fighting with swords and spears(Korea.net)

In that paradigm, the ship is primarily a floating delivery platform for infantry. Firearms are important, but they are the prelude to boarding, not the main way of deciding the battle.

(2) Joseon’s Alternative: Artillery-First, Keep Them Off the Deck

Joseon, by contrast, had a long record of developing gunpowder artillery well before the Imjin War. Under King Sejong and his successors, several families of cannon—cheonja, jija, hyeonja, and hwangja chongtong—were standardized and progressively lightened for naval use.(uexinja.blogspot.com)

Very roughly:

Cheonja (“heaven”) guns: the largest pieces, long range but fewer in number
Jija (“earth”) and hyeonja (“black”) guns: medium calibers, the practical workhorses in battle
Hwangja (“yellow”) and smaller portable pieces: short-range, multi-shot, or grapeshot-type roles; some overlapped the space where we might put hand-cannon today

Some royal chronicles boast extremely long ranges—far over a kilometer—using idealized “paces” and test shots. Modern analysis is more cautious: effective combat ranges of a few hundred meters are more realistic, but that was still enough to outrange typical Japanese small guns and small-caliber boat guns of the time, especially when firing from a high upper deck.(위키백과)

A panokseon’s layout made full use of this doctrine:

Cannons distributed along the bow, stern, and sides so the ship could fire in any direction
Space on the upper deck for mixed volleys of cannon and massed archery
The ability to create “layers” of fire:
- Long and mid-range bombardment with artillery
- Archery as the enemy approached
- Small guns and anti-personnel rounds if a ship got dangerously close

Where Japanese doctrine said, “Shoot, then board,” Joseon’s answer was:

“Shoot so much, from so far, and from so high that they never get the chance to board at all.”

The panokseon’s tall sides and two-deck layout were the physical hardware behind that idea.

5. Imjin War Case Studies: Where the Panokseon Proved Itself (and Where It Didn’t)

(1) Hansan Island: A Textbook Panokseon Battle

The Battle of Hansan Island (1592) is often cited as the panokseon’s masterpiece.

Admiral Yi Sun-sin deployed a panokseon fleet in his famous crane-wing formation, curving around the Japanese fleet.
As the Japanese ships pressed inward, they sailed deeper into overlapping fields of cannon and arrow fire from both “wings.”(Facebook)

In this battle, the famous turtle ships (geobukseon) were shock units used for disruption and breakthrough. The bulk of the destruction was delivered by panokseon squadrons firing in disciplined waves.

(2) Myeongnyang: Ship Design Meets Geography

At Myeongnyang Strait (1597), Admiral Yi faced an overwhelming numerical disadvantage. He compensated with:

Violent tidal currents in a narrow passage
Flat-bottomed, strongly built panokseon that could better ride those currents and pivot quickly
Concentrated fire from upper decks against Japanese ships thrown into chaos by the water(Facebook)

Again, the panokseon was not a magic weapon by itself, but its structural traits matched the environment almost perfectly.

(3) Not an Invincible “Wonder Ship”

It is important not to over-mythologize:

Joseon cannons still faced limitations in powder quality, metallurgy, and aiming; they required extensive training and maintenance.
The panokseon’s flat bottom, while ideal for coastal waters and tidal straits, made it less suitable for the open ocean and heavy swell.
The Japanese navy evolved too, experimenting with heavier guns and modified warships after the shock of early defeats.(Korea.net)

So the panokseon’s superiority was not that “one ship class was absolutely the strongest in the world,” but that:

Its hull form fit Korea’s coastal geography,
Its two-deck layout fit Joseon artillery doctrine, and
It matured inside a navy that had trained with gunpowder weapons for decades.

Those three layers together created the edge we see in the historical record.

6. Blog-Friendly Takeaways: Why the Panokseon Matters

If you want to distill this into a punchy blog conclusion, these are solid anchor points:

Joseon’s naval victories were not lucky accidents.
The panokseon was the result of several decades of thinking about:
- Heavy vs. light hulls
- Transport duties vs. pure combat roles
- How to counter Japanese boarding tactics with artillery and height
The turtle ship was the symbol; the panokseon was the day-to-day firepower.
Turtle ships were few in number and highly specialized.
The panokseon carried most of the fleet’s guns, most of the sailors, and did most of the actual fighting.
“Local design beats imported templates.”
The panokseon’s flat bottom, no-keel box hull, and double-deck structure look alien next to Western sailing ships of the same era.
But for the shallow, tidal, island-strewn seas of Korea—and for a doctrine built around artillery rather than heroic boarding parties—it was exactly the right tool.

If you frame it that way, your article naturally shifts from:

“We had a cool ship once”

to:

“Here is how a small country, stuck between powerful neighbors, used ship design, geography, and doctrine to punch far above its weight at sea.”

And in that story, the quiet MVP is not the spiky turtle ship on the movie poster,
but the panokseon, the real workhorse of the Imjin War.

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Thirty Years of Korean-Style Neoliberalism

IMF, the Republic of Irregular Work, Platform Labor, and the Future of Young People

From the 1997 “Gold-Collecting Campaign” to the N-Po Generation of the 2020s:
Rewinding the structural changes we actually lived through, with data and lived examples.

1. After the 1997 IMF Crisis: How Korean-Style Neoliberalism Was Installed

The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis wasn’t just an economic shock.
It was a regime change in the rules of the game.

The IMF bailout came with a familiar set of conditions:

Accelerated liberalization of finance and capital markets
Privatization and restructuring of state-owned enterprises and financial institutions
Labor market flexibilization – in plain language, making it easier to hire and fire

In 1998, amendments to the Labor Standards Act and the Dispatch (temp agency) Act brought in:

“Managerial” mass layoffs – the legal basis for firing people “for business reasons”
Dispatch and subcontracting as fully legalized, mainstream employment forms

Of course, layoffs and temporary jobs existed before then.
But the rulebook changed:

From “once you get in, you more or less stay” + a peripheral layer of temps
to “permanent restructuring + permanent precarity.”

Through the 2000s, the Korean economy:

Recovered fast as an export-led, chaebol-centric economy, and
Enjoyed growth built on finance and real-estate bubbles

But something snapped:

A company’s crisis was treated as everyone’s crisis,
Yet a company’s recovery no longer translated into a recovery of ordinary people’s lives.

That asymmetry is basically the starting point of Korean-style neoliberalism.

2. The “Republic of Irregular Work”: Season 1 in Numbers

2.1 Irregular Work Becomes the Norm, Not the Exception

According to Statistics Korea’s supplementary survey on non-regular workers (2023):

Non-regular workers: about 8.12 million people
Share of all wage-workers: around 37%

Right after the crisis, the share was in the low-20% range.

By the mid-2000s it had jumped to around 35%,
and since then it has hovered in the one-third to close-to-40% band.

So instead of:

“Regular workers + a small fringe of non-regulars”

what we actually got is:

Roughly “6 regular : 4 non-regular”, a dual structure that has been locked in for over 20 years.

2.2 Wages and Benefits: Same Work, Different Planet

If you pool data from government and research institutes (numbers vary slightly by year), you get something like:

Hourly wage of non-regulars: about 65–70% of regular workers
Severance pay, bonuses, welfare benefits: often less than half of regular levels
Unionization rate: less than one-third that of regular employees

Same work, same workplace – but if your contract type is different, then:

Your pay,
Your benefits,
Your promotion path

are basically on a completely different track.

For firms, this is “cost savings + flexible adjustment of manpower.”
For individuals, it is a life in which long-term planning is structurally impossible.

2.3 Income and Wealth Inequality: Both Deepen Together

The income quintile ratio (top 20% vs bottom 20%) sits around 5–6 to 1 in recent years – stubbornly high.

On the asset side, household finance and welfare surveys show:

The top 10% of households own over half (around 60%) of all net assets.

In one line:

30 years after IMF:
“Big corporations and asset-owners became structurally stronger,
while the lower and precarious tiers became structurally poorer.”

3. Platform Labor: The Face of Season 2

If irregular work was Season 1 of Korean neoliberalism in the 2000s,
then in the late 2010s and 2020s, platform labor is clearly Season 2.

3.1 The Numbers

Surveys by the Korea Employment Information Service and the Korea Labor Institute suggest roughly:

2021: about 2.2 million platform workers
2022: around 2.92 million – a **32.9% jump in just one year

Depending on how you define it, 8–10% of all workers now earn income through platforms.

Examples:

Delivery riders, quick-service drivers, designated drivers, app-based couriers
Warehouse pickers/packers for Coupang, Market Kurly, etc.
Online freelancers on platforms like Kmong or Soomgo (design, coding, translation, tutoring…)
Content creators and influencers on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc.

3.2 Called “Boss,” Treated Like a Worker – With Fewer Rights

The contract logic goes roughly like this:

No 4 major insurances, no severance pay, no guaranteed minimum wage
Officially: “self-employed” or “individual contractor”
In reality: your work volume, pay rate, and rating are controlled by an algorithm

In other words:

You’re managed like an employee,
but your legal status is downgraded to that of a fragile micro-business.

Platform labor doesn’t just extend the old regular vs non-regular divide.
It complicates it:

Risk and costs are offloaded onto individuals
Profits and data are concentrated in the platform

That is the core architecture of Neoliberalism 2.0.

4. A Generation’s Story: From IMF Kids to Platform Kids

4.1 Official Youth Unemployment Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story

The headline youth unemployment rate (ages 15–29) in 2023 was around 6–7%.
On paper, that looks “manageable”.

But if you look at the broader “employment supplementary indicator 3” – often called youth “felt” unemployment –

The rate is above 20% (roughly 21–22%).

This bucket includes:

Involuntary part-time and under-employed workers
People preparing for jobs but not counted as “unemployed”
NEETs who have effectively dropped out of job searching

So in practical terms:

More than 1 in 5 young people are outside anything resembling a decent job.

4.2 “Good Jobs Are Narrow, My Own Home Is Distant”

What 30 years of neoliberalism feels like to Korean youth can be summed up pretty simply:

Regular, stable jobs: fewer and harder to get
Even if you get in: overtime, low pay, and performance pressure as default settings
Seoul/metro housing prices climbing far faster than wages
Starting adulthood with student loans, jeonse loans, overdrafts

Hence the keywords we all know:

Hell Joseon,
the N-Po generation (the “give-up-N-things” generation),
yeongkkeul (all-in mortgage leverage),
byeorak-geoji (sudden “poverty” after missing the asset boom),
the “villa-king” and jeonse fraud scandals…

And holding it all up in the background is:

One of the highest household debt levels in the world,
A society built on leverage into real estate and stocks.

4.3 A Generation of Both Cynicism and Protest

There’s a paradox here.

On the one hand, this generation is soaked in political cynicism and disgust.
On the other, it has been front and center in nearly every major movement:

The candlelight protests,
Riders’ and platform-workers’ unions,
Feminist movements, climate activism, and new political experiments.

So this is a generation that has:

“Hyper-individualized survival competition” and “collective resistance memories”
burned into its DNA at the same time.

That mix may turn out to be the critical variable in reshaping Korean politics and society.

5. Thirty Years of Korean Neoliberalism: The Report Card

5.1 What It Gave Us

Export, digital, and platform power

IT, semiconductors, smartphones, games, K-pop, dramas –
Korea undeniably climbed into the top tier of global competitiveness in many sectors.

A dramatic rise in per-capita income and material living standards

From around $10,000 per capita in 1997
To the mid-$30,000 range today

That is a real, tangible achievement.
Saying “everything just collapsed” simply isn’t accurate.

5.2 What It Took Away

But the price paid has been heavy.

The stability of work and life

Irregular, platform, freelance work has become a default, not an exception.

Deeply entrenched income and wealth inequality

Top deciles have secured a long-term lock on income and assets.

A growth model running on household debt

A “leverage society” where almost everything depends on real estate and financial speculation.

Structural despair among the young

Specs race + unstable jobs + housing crisis
→ the collapse of any believable future narrative.

In short:

Korean-style neoliberalism succeeded in “growth,”
but failed spectacularly in “stability of life” and “hope for the future.”

6. Minimum Conditions for Imagining a Post-Neoliberal Korea

If we want to change this, the answer cannot just be
“try harder” or “be more efficient.”

We have to rewrite the rules themselves.
For a blog-friendly checklist, at least four pillars are hard to dodge.

6.1 Resetting Labor Rules – Ending “Boss-Cosplay Work”

Expand protections for platform, “special-type,” and freelance workers

Gradually extend basic safety nets (industrial accident insurance, employment insurance, minimum wage)
regardless of contract form.

Tighten the rules on using non-regulars and strengthen conversion to open-ended contracts

“Non-regular as a cheap disposable category” should shrink,
And temporary contracts should be clearly limited to situations where they are genuinely needed.

6.2 Redistributing Income and Wealth – Because Wages Alone Won’t Cut It

Normalize taxation on assets and unearned income

Slightly stronger, fairer taxation on non-labor income
from real estate, stocks, inheritance, and gifts.

Scale up public and long-term rental housing for youth and the housing-poor

Shift from “no home unless you inherit assets”
To at least “everyone can secure a place to live without life-ruining debt.”

6.3 Welfare State 2.0 – Not Just Handouts, but “Basic Infrastructure”

Cash transfers alone won’t change the structure.
We need a “basic infrastructure state”:

Healthcare, education, care work, housing, and transport
closer to public goods than luxury items.

Only when “it is actually livable” can markets and individuals function without burning out.

6.4 Bringing the Young to the Center of Politics

Lower the barriers to youth participation in parties and policymaking

Party membership, candidate registration, access to policy budgets, etc.

Public support for organizing youth, platform workers, and freelancers

Not just traditional unions,
but also new forms of co-ops, guilds, and professional associations.

7. Conclusion – “Can We End This Regime?” Is the Wrong Question

If we grade 30 years of Korean neoliberalism, the report roughly looks like this:

Economic growth and global competitiveness: B+ to A-
Stability of life, equality, and the future of the young: D

The real issue is not:

“Can we overthrow this system overnight?”

but rather:

“Do we have the imagination and political will
to upgrade this system into something fairer?”

The good news is that the raw materials for that upgrade are already here:

The memory of the candlelight movement,
The small but persistent strikes and organizing efforts of platform workers,
The political experiments of young people, women, and the climate generation.

They are, in a sense, the trailer for whatever comes after Korean-style neoliberalism.

What the full movie looks like
will depend on what choices we make now.

Is Neoliberalism Really Over?

China, Africa, Automation – Reading the Next Round of the Global Economy

If you had to pick one word that haunted the global economy for the last 40 years, a lot of economists would still say:

“Neoliberalism.”

Deregulation, privatization, free trade, small government.
On paper it sounds like “efficiency and growth.”
On the ground, it often felt more like this:

Restructuring and mass layoffs,
Precarious contracts and gig work,
The constant fear of being fired “at any time,”
Soaring housing and education costs,
While your paycheck hardly moves.

Bundle all of that together and you get what many now call:

“The dark side of the neoliberal order.”

So how long does this system last?
Is it really about to collapse and be replaced by something completely different?

Rather than shouting “it’s all doomed” or “everything’s fine”,
this piece takes a slower walk through what is actually changing right now –
and what those changes might mean for a “post-neoliberal” world.

1. Neoliberalism: What Was the Actual Problem?

Very roughly, neoliberalism pushed four big ideas as policy:

Free movement of capital
– Looser controls on cross-border investment and finance.
Shrinking the public sector
– Privatization, selling state-owned firms, marketizing public services.
Labor market “flexibility”
– Easier layoffs, more temp and contract work, wage restraint.
Fiscal austerity
– Smaller welfare states, tighter budgets, cutting social spending.

The result, in many countries:

The top 1% saw their share of income and wealth grow,
The middle saw wages stagnate or slide,
Insecure work became a normal life condition, not an exception,
And even with all that, growth was often weaker than promised.

In other words:
the pain was widely socialized, the gains were highly concentrated.

2. China, India and the Limits of the “Cheap Labor” Model

The first playground for global capital under neoliberal rules was simple:

“Go where labor is cheap and plentiful.”

China, after “reform and opening,” rode that wave for decades with near double-digit growth.
India plugged itself into global value chains through IT and services.

But that model is now hitting its limits:

Wages in China have steadily risen,
Environmental rules are tighter,
Labor rights claims and social tensions are growing.

In other words:

“Just being the world’s cheap factory floor”
is no longer a stable long-term strategy.

Factories have already started shifting to:

India,
Southeast Asia,
Bangladesh,
Vietnam…

But we only have one planet.
You can’t keep outrunning rising wages forever by moving to “the next cheap place.”
At some point, there is no “next.”

3. Is Africa the “Last Labor Reservoir”?

The original post that inspired this essay imagined a grim scenario:
global capital “invading Africa” as the final reservoir of cheap labor.

Reality is messier.

Africa’s population is already about 1.4 billion,
And is projected to reach 2.5 billion by 2050.

So the issue isn’t “too few people.”
The real problem is:

Jobs, education and infrastructure are not keeping up with that population growth.

At the same time, Africa today is not just a passive victim of “foreign exploitation”:

China is funding railways, ports and industrial zones,
Western governments and firms are pushing renewables and digital infrastructure,
Local fintech, agri-tech and other startups are popping up and drawing capital.

Are there new forms of inequality and conflict in that process? Absolutely.
Do many projects fail? Of course.

But the simplistic vision –

“One day the US sends in troops and runs the whole continent like a giant colony”

– really doesn’t match what’s happening on the ground.

4. Automation and AI: The End of Work, or Just a Re-Shuffle?

The original piece we’re riffing on argued:

“Science will reduce the need for labor so much that permanent mass unemployment becomes inevitable.”

That’s overstated, but the direction of concern is worth taking seriously.

Robots, factory automation and AI are already:

Replacing repetitive manual tasks,
Eating into middle-skill office and technical jobs,
And reshaping whole sectors at high speed.

That does not mean “all jobs disappear.”
New technologies always create new types of work too.

The deeper problem is this:

The new jobs often demand more education and higher skills,
and those who can’t clear that bar fall into even more precarious work.

The classic neoliberal answer was:

“Reskill yourself. Compete harder. Survive as an individual.”

But in many countries, we’ve reached the political and social limits of that mantra.

People increasingly feel:

The risks are individualized,
While the gains are privatized.

That’s a recipe for backlash.

5. Is Neoliberalism Really Heading for an End?

Since the 2008 financial crisis, then COVID-19, the climate crisis, and rising US–China tensions, the global landscape has shifted a lot.

We now see:

The US and EU returning to industrial policy and subsidies,
Supply chains being treated as national security assets,
Welfare, emergency income support and public healthcare being politically rehabilitated.

What’s striking is that these moves aren’t just coming from left-leaning governments.
Even many conservatives now accept that:

The era of shouting “markets solve everything” is over.

We’re in a post-neoliberal mood, where:

The state is expected to step back in strategically.

But this doesn’t mean:

Capitalism collapses tomorrow,
And Marx’s final stage communism rolls in automatically.

A more realistic picture:

Some regions drift toward “repaired capitalism” – more welfare, more regulation.
Others evolve into “neo-capitalist blocs” – heavy state intervention plus digital surveillance and authoritarian controls.
Still others experiment with hybrid models that don’t fit any neat textbook.

So instead of:

“One Great Depression → Worldwide Revolution → One New System”

we’re more likely entering a long, messy multipolar contest among several kinds of regimes.

6. So What Should We Actually Be Thinking About?

The original article ends with a big claim:

“We need a globally unified planned economy under the banner of humanism.”

As an ideal, that sounds noble.
As a realistic political program, it feels… very far away.

Still, there are concrete questions we can extract and actually work with:

1. In an age of “growth without jobs,” how do we share income?

Universal basic income?
Social dividends from natural resources or data?
Shorter working hours?
Stronger regulation of platform work?

2. How do we rebuild welfare states without repeating past inefficiencies?

How do we tax large corporations and ultra-wealthy households effectively, not symbolically?
How do we guarantee quality in public services while keeping them democratically accountable?

3. Can we redefine “growth” under climate and resource constraints?

Is there a model that prioritizes quality of life, safety and ecological sustainability
over just “a bigger number each year”?

4. How do we stop AI and automation from becoming a pure monopoly game?

Rules for data as a public resource,
Transparency and fairness in algorithms,
Support for open-source ecosystems and public interest tech.

Depending on how societies answer these, the “end of neoliberalism” could mean:

A transition to a more just and stable order,
Or a slide into something more unequal, more repressive, and more brittle.

The direction is not predetermined. It’s a political choice.

7. In the End, It’s Not “Will It Collapse?” but “How Do We Change It?”

One healthy instinct in the original piece is this:

It refuses to believe that the current system will last forever.

Where it trips up a bit is here:

A hyper-dramatic Africa invasion scenario,
A binary choice between “human extinction or world revolution,”
Old numbers and very absolute, prophetic language.

For today’s readers, that can start to feel like:

“Retro left-wing sci-fi” rather than serious analysis.

If you’re writing this for an ad-driven blog, you’re usually better off if you:

Update facts and figures with the latest data,
Offer scenarios and options, not “I alone know the future,”
End with concrete questions that readers can relate back to their own lives
– housing, job insecurity, pensions, student debt, and so on.

Use the reframed structure above as your backbone,
then wrap it with:

A few of your own experiences,
Some vivid examples from Korean society (real estate, temp work, pension debates…).

That alone is enough to build a piece that grabs clicks and reading time,
without sacrificing depth or honesty.

From Seungja Chongtong to Cheonbochong How Joseon Learned the Firepower Lessons of the Imjin War

1) “Arquebus Shock”: When One Weapon Tilted the Battlefield

Any time Koreans talk about the Imjin War, one phrase pops up without fail:

“조총 쇼크 – the arquebus shock.”

The matchlock arquebus (조총, tanegashima) that Japanese forces brought to Korea was, from Joseon’s point of view, a completely different beast. The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty even record claims that the arquebus could:

“Hit birds flying in the forest,”
and that “eight or nine out of ten shots would find their mark.”

If we blamed Joseon’s early defeats at Busan, Dongnae, Sangju, and at the Tangeumdae battlefield only on Japanese guns, that would be an oversimplification. Command, logistics, and mobilization all collapsed together.

But it’s equally hard to deny this:

Against an army built around bows and spears, the Japanese matchlock squads put a new level of concentrated firepower on the field.

The story doesn’t end there, though.

As the war dragged on:

Joseon captured Japanese guns and reverse-engineered them,
Studied Chinese and Japanese firearms side-by-side,
And began producing Korean-pattern matchlocks in quantity.

By the later Imjin phase, through the Jeongyu War (the later invasion), and into the Manchu and northern campaigns, gunners (포수, 銃手) had become the core of Joseon’s field firepower.

In other words, the Imjin War was both:

the war where Joseon was knocked down by arquebuses,
and the war where Joseon learned to shoot back.

2) Korean Matchlocks and the Cheonbochong: The Age of Range Wars

After any major war, generals everywhere ask the same question:

“Can we shoot farther and harder than the other side next time?”

Joseon was no exception.
After the Imjin War, Korean gunsmiths took a hard look at Japanese long guns (장총) and started developing their own long-range matchlocks.

In the records we see names like:

Daejochong (大鳥銃) – “great bird gun,”
Cheonbochong (千步銃) – literally “thousand-pace gun.”

Just from the name, the image writes itself:

A gun with a longer barrel than standard arquebuses,
Packing more powder,
Designed to push the effective range out to several hundred meters—
a deliberate counter to Japanese long guns.

Exact numbers differ from source to source, but the very phrase “cheonbo – a thousand paces” tells us this was a serious long-range weapon by the standards of the time.

As for patriotic claims like:

“Joseon completely outclassed Japanese gun tech after the war!”

that’s where we need to tap the brakes a bit.

From what modern research can reconstruct, it’s safer to say:

In range, accuracy, and production quality,
Joseon and Japan were constantly leapfrogging each other,
Each tuning their guns to their own terrain and tactics, rather than one side clearly “winning the arms race.”

Still, the very fact that Joseon responded to arquebus shock by developing its own long guns is a crucial part of the story.

3) Seungja Chongtong: Gun or Cannon?

One of the most heated internet arguments is about the Seungja Chongtong (勝字銃筒).

Some insist:

“There’s no way that thing was fired by hand. It’s a small cannon, period.”

Measured against modern scholarship, that’s… half true and half exaggerated.

So what was the Seungja Chongtong?

Roughly:

Length: about 75–80 cm,
Bore: around 2 cm,
Function: a small artillery piece that could fire
- multiple lead balls at once, or
- special arrow-like bolts.

It had:

A wooden shaft (stock) fitted into the rear, so a single soldier could carry and aim it,
And could also be mounted on tripods, battlements, or ship railings.

In modern terms, it sits somewhere between:

“oversized personal firearm” and “miniature cannon.”

You could aim it like a gun,
but in terms of structure, ammo, and employment, it was closer to artillery.

So was it fired from the shoulder, or braced?

From surviving examples and period notes:

The long wooden stock suggests it was at least partly shoulder- or hip-fired,
But due to recoil, it was often braced against a wall, parapet, ship’s side, or carriage.

So:

Calling it a “light, shoulder-fired arquebus” is misleading.
But saying, “It’s a full-blown cannon; no one could ever fire it by hand” is also too absolute.

The most honest, blog-friendly description is something like:

“Seungja Chongtong: a portable small cannon — a Korean hand-cannon.”

4) Cheonja, Jija, Hyeonja, Hwangja, and the Folangji: How Big Guns Really Worked

As the forum post that inspired this piece notes, Joseon already had a famous “four-tier” artillery system by the Imjin War:

Cheonja (天字)
Jija (地字)
Hyeonja (玄字)
Hwangja (黃字) Chongtong

These were the pinnacle of the late Goryeo / early Joseon gunpowder artillery tradition:

Impressive range and hitting power,
Very effective in fortresses and on warships,
But enormously heavy—not something you drag around for mobile field battles.

On land, what really shone were lighter, more mobile guns. The star of that show:

The Folangji gun (佛郎機砲) – often just called bulranggi.

The Folangji was a Western-derived, breech-loading small cannon:

Short, relatively light barrel,
A breech chamber you could swap in and out for speedy reloading,
Perfect for mounting on castle walls, ship railings, carts, or makeshift tripods.

Yes, breech-loading at the time meant:

Leaky gas,
Less power than a solid-breech heavy cannon.

But as a mobile, quick-firing gun that could keep up with troops, it was loved by Joseon commanders.

If you think in game terms:

Cheonja / Jija / Hyeonja / Hwangja were the “on paper” S-tier units—massive stats, but expensive and sluggish.
The Folangji was the meta-defining unit for actual field fights: not the biggest numbers, but the most practical.

5) Janggunjeon, Singijeon, Land Mines: Flashy Weapons vs. Cold Numbers

Some weapons are guaranteed to start a fight in any history forum:

Janggunjeon / Daejanggunjeon – massive arrow or rocket-assisted bolts,
Singijeon – the legendary “rocket arrows” fired from hwacha (rocket carts),
Jirwipo / flying thunder bombs – early bomb and “land mine”-style weapons.

In paintings and museum displays, they look spectacular.
You can’t help but think:

“Surely one volley of that must have wiped out entire Japanese formations.”

But when we look at production numbers and actual deployment,
a more sober picture emerges. These were more “special effects” than “main damage dealers.”

Low production volume

Janggunjeon-type heavy bolts consumed a lot of high-quality materials and labor.
Some studies even suggest that, when you compare pre-war and post-war inventories,
the number of these “prestige arrows” actually declined during the war,
because they were so hard to replenish.

Hard to aim and control

Rocket arrows look amazing in flight, but:
- Their trajectory is at the mercy of burn rate, wind, and manufacturing inconsistencies.
Gunners didn’t have infinite time or powder to train only with these exotic projectiles.

Their real value: “psychological weapons” and niche tools

At night or during fortress defense,
the noise, flame, and smoke from rocket arrows and bombs could seriously rattle the enemy.
They were great for:
- Panic,
- Confusion,
- Setting fires,
- Breaking up tightly packed formations.

But the day-to-day killing power on the battlefield still came from:

Matchlocks,
Seungja chongtong hand-cannons,
Folangji guns,
And the classic Chongtong artillery.

As for Jirwipo and “land mines”, most scholars agree these were closer to:

“Bombs fired from guns that exploded on or near the ground,”

rather than modern buried land mines.
Again: useful in specific situations, but not the main pillar of Joseon’s firepower.

6) Bows and Guns Together: The Imjin War’s Real Takeaway

People like to summarize the Imjin War with lines like:

“Japan was strong because of guns.
Joseon was strong because of cannons.”

That’s… half right and half wrong.

If you look at the units that actually performed well in battle, you see a pattern:

They used bows, spears, guns, and cannons together.

In mountain ambushes, bows and light arrows (like pyeonjeon, short armor-piercing shafts) were still brutally effective.
On plains and in siege warfare,
- arquebuses,
- Seungja chongtong,
- Folangji,
- And the heavier Chongtong provided the backbone of firepower.

Famous victories like Kwon Yul’s defense at Haengju combined:

Close-range aimed volleys from firearms,
Massed longbow and pyeonjeon fire,
And cannon fire into a layered defensive system.

Joseon adopted new weapons fast—but didn’t throw away the old ones.

King Seonjo himself, for all his flaws, recognized the power of the arquebus,
yet he and his officers never stopped thinking about how to use bows and pyeonjeon to their advantage.

Later, during King Hyojong’s northern-campaign plans,
there were even proposals to reorganize artillery units as mixed gun-and-bow formations
(called sapo chambandae, 사포참반대) rather than pure gunner units.

In the end, the key wasn’t the type of weapon, but the ability to use it properly.

Give the same matchlock to two armies:
- If one has poor training, command, supply, and terrain usage,
  its “firepower advantage” evaporates.
- If the other knows how to combine its weapons and exploit the terrain,
  it can hold out even without the very latest gear.

So perhaps we should stop telling the story as:

“A tragic tale of a kingdom crushed by one foreign gun.”

and instead say:

“The Imjin War was the moment Joseon threw every bit of its centuries-old gunpowder and archery tradition into the forge,
and hammered old and new weapons into a new kind of combined-arms warfare.”