Hello. My name is Mingwan, and I will tell you all about Joseon’s inventions for battles.
There are two of Joseon’s best battle inventions. First, a famous general named Admiral Yi made a very strong iron clad ship. It was called a turtle ship or geobukseon(거북선) because of the shape. The ship was made of strong wood, and the iron plates on the back made the ships safe from attacking enemies and fires. Also, the ship’s bottom was large and flat, making it slow but capable of turning quickly. Because of these, they could fire cannons on one side, turn the ship, and fire from the other side. Second, the Joseon people used smoke signals called bongsu. The smoke signal stations, or bongsu-dae were on top of mountains. If a soldier saw an attack on a mountain, he lit different numbers of smokes, signaling it to another soldiers on other mountains, telling others about the enemies.
I was interested about the turtle ships and the bongsu-daes. I’ve never seen a real bongsu-dae on a mountain, so I look forward to visiting it one day.
