Siege of Suncheon

The Siege of Suncheon was an unsuccessful Korean and Chinese Allied Forces attempt to capture Suncheon Japanese Castle late in the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598).

Siege

Korean and Chinese troops tried to capture three places (the Suncheon Japanese Castle, the Sacheon Japanese Castle, and the Ulsan Japanese Castle) at the same time in September 1598.

In Suncheon Japanese Castle of these, Konishi Yukinaga defended it with 14,000 Japanese soldiers. The Allied Forces of Korean and Chinese originally planned to attack with a combined operation where the army and navy strikes both sides of the Castle at the same time on September 19. However, Liu Ting, Commander of the Chinese army, accepted bribes from Japanese general Konishi Yukinaga or for some other reason failed to follow up the attack on his end despite report of the Japanese forces being almost entirely devoted to defending against the naval attack.

As for the naval attack on Suncheon Japanese Castle. Chen Lin, Commander of the Chinese navy and The Korean admiral Yi Sun-sin attacked during high tide and came up close to the Japanese castle on its seaside. However, as Liu Ting did not properly follow up his end of the operation, the Navy ended up facing heavier than expected resistance and was unable to break through, by the time the tide retreated several ships were trapped in the bay. The Chinese sailors were operating on smaller ships and thus were both closer to the walls (thus making it harder to retreat) and were more exposed once trapped. Thus the Chinese sailors took heavy casualties when the Japanese attacked the trapped ships, whereas the Koreans mostly managed to held out on their bigger ships until the tide came up again and they sailed back out at the Battle of Jangdo.

Chen Lin was absolutely furious and confronted Liu Ting afterwards, who did not make much of a defense of his inexplicable lack of attack.

The Allied forces broke the siege though remained close within the vicinity of until the end of the war.

See also

• Battle of Sacheon (1598)
• Second Siege of Ulsan
• Japanese castles in Korea (Waeseong)