699.
The shattered ships could no longer sail.
Hulls split and oars snapped, they surrendered their bodies to the current.
The strait was merciless.
Any ship that could not stand against the flow was simply taken.
On top of them, soldiers jumped.
From decks, from rails, shoving one another, they fell into the sea.
At the end of the tide's path, Kyushu's ships were waiting.
There was no refuge.
They clung to the drifting hulls and climbed aboard, and they hauled down anyone who tried to flee.
Swords and spears flashed above the water.
For men who had come out of the harbor ready to fight, this place functioned like a slaughterhouse.
If they tried to push forward, cannon tore them apart.
If they broke and were shoved downstream, Kyushu's fleet came down on them.
Goryeo's armada repeated advance and withdrawal.
They measured current and distance to keep the cannon at their effective range.
When pressed back, they rowed.
When the line held, they stepped forward again and opened the gunports.
Above that, archers moved.
Every ship carried bows in numbers equal to its men.
An arrow-storm poured down.
It wasn't scattered fire.
Their timing matched.
They drew breath, and in the same moment they drew.
Hundreds of arrows flew at once.
The sound of air tearing overlapped into a single roar.
There was no gap left to dodge.
Angles vanished.
Space vanished.
They broke under cannon and were pierced by arrows.
Men on deck were stuck like hedgehogs.
Raise a shield, crouch low—there was always a seam.
Still, from the rear, the shouting continued.
"Attack!"
As if seize just one ship, hook it once, and the whole battle would flip.
Then Park Seong-jin lifted a bow.
A smile flickered at the corner of his mouth, as though he'd remembered it had been a while.
He set three or four quivers before him.
He took one arrow, drew, released.
At once he seized the next.
Faster than a repeating crossbow.
Breath and hand ran as one line.
The arrows flew far.
They carved the surface of the water with a weighted trajectory and found the command decks.
They slipped under helmets.
Deaths overlapped in the same instant.
Bodies snapped back as headshots drove them down, piling on the planks.
The moment he confirmed a helmet hit the deck, he was already finding the next target.
When one ship's command collapsed, he shifted to the next.
Shouting broke.
Hand signals vanished.
The ship lost direction.
Smoke and screams tangled over the strait.
On the water drifted splinters, shields, floating corpses.
Yet Goryeo's line still held.
The cannon did not cool.
The bows did not stop.
A signal rose.
Flags snapped open, cutting the wind.
Goryeo's ships advanced all at once.
Oars gripped the water.
Hundreds of blades submerged together, and the sea seemed to flinch.
In that instant, the flow of the strait looked as if it had changed.
The ships did not scatter.
The line abreast pushed forward as a single body.
Waves struck the hulls and shattered into spray.
The current could no longer shove them aside.
The advance was slow, but it did not stop.
Not one ship, not two—an entire wall moved.
The gunports stayed shut.
The cannon had already finished their work.
Now came the pressing stage.
The closer Goryeo's ships came, the more the Japanese ships were forced back.
Turn, and they collided with the ship beside them.
Stop, and they were crushed from the front.
The center of the strait was no longer a battlefield.
The sea drove the enemy toward the harbor.
Japanese ships were pushed back, back.
Oar-strokes turned frantic.
A cry of "Retreat!" burst from the rear, but retreat meant collision.
The harbor mouth was narrow and already full of ships.
Ships trapped inside and ships shoved from outside overlapped into one knot.
It came like a wave.
The more Goryeo advanced, the more the Japanese ships slammed into each other and poured inward.
A broken ship blocked the front like a shield.
Another climbed onto it.
On deck, men fell.
Oars broke.
Smoke lay low.
Flags tangled on the water.
The harbor's throat clogged.
The sea was no longer open.
The exit was sealed, and the remaining space kept shrinking.
Goryeo's line did not stop.
Past the strait's mouth, it pressed toward the harbor like a wall.
Hull met hull, close enough to feel the pressure with the eye.
The current sucked into the harbor and spun into a whirl.
Screams burst from inside.
Those with nowhere left to step trampled each other.
On decks, in the water, bodies writhed to survive.
That day, the sea fully performed its function as a battlefield.
Goryeo's ships became the door that closed the harbor mouth.
And that door closed—slowly, but certainly.
Not a single ship escaped.
Only wrecks, blown apart and swept helpless by the tide, slipped out beyond control.
The Japanese ships struck by cannon lost direction.
With rudders snapped and oars broken, they slid down on the current.
Kanmon's water was ruthless.
Waves slapped their sides, and water climbed through the cracks of shattered planks.
Men clung to decks, and some jumped into the sea.
At the end of that flow, Kyushu's ships were waiting.
They had not dropped anchor.
They bound their oars, surrendered their bodies to the current, and received the drifting enemy hulls at precise angles.
The impacts were brief and brutal.
Grappling hooks flew and caught the gunwales, and at the same time arrows poured down.
Arrows stuck into broken decks.
Men slipped on wet planks.
Japanese archers raised bows, but had no time to set their stance.
Kyushu arrows came low and fast—close, lethal.
Spears drove down.
At the edges of ships, above the water, between deck and deck, spearpoints flashed.
They stabbed low, shoved back, stabbed again.
They hauled up the fallen and pinned them with spear-shafts.
There was no time to breathe.
Each time hulls touched, fighting erupted.
They boarded each other.
They stepped over broken ribs of wood and tangled like jaws.
Steel rang.
Metal scraped on planks.
Screams and shouts mixed into one.
Samurai grit their teeth and rushed, but the footing was unstable and behind them was water.
Kyushu soldiers held the hull and drove forward.
If one fell, another filled the space.
Breaths matched.
Movements continued.
The ship rocked again.
The enemy bow split and water poured in.
In that instant, Kyushu's men shoved in unison.
Those pushed fell into the sea, and armor dragged them down.
Hands surfaced for a moment—then vanished.
Arrows kept coming.
Not from afar.
From a range where you could feel each other's breath—draw short, release.
A gap under a helmet.
Between shoulder and neck.
Below the elbow.
If it hit, it ended.
Spears hunted seams.
Swords made corridors.
Kyushu's ships rocked, but did not collapse.
Decks already cleared.
Positions predetermined.
A returning rhythm.
If someone stumbled, the man behind caught him.
On the Japanese ships, command broke.
Flags fell.
Orders sank into the water.
Each man's scramble for life piled into a larger disorder.
At last, the hooks were released.
There was no need to hold them anymore.
The ship was already dead.
When Kyushu pulled away, the broken hull went back to the tide and drifted off.
No one remained on deck who could still fight.
What happened there was processing.
Battle was only the surface shape of that processing.
While the current carried corpses and splinters away, Kyushu's ships quietly turned to face the next enemy hull drifting down.
There was a path: abandon ship and flee to land.
But on that path stood a bad bastard.
He shouted from behind.
No matter what was happening ahead, he yelled at them to advance.
That was his duty.
That was his job.
He wasn't even a general.
He was a dog guarding a general's house.
He drew steel, strutted, and screamed.
He said he'd cut anyone who retreated.
He said he'd kill anyone who ran.
Now they understood why the saying existed—
that the dog could be more frightening than the lord.
A thought flashed: better to die than stay on the ship.
Then a half-smashed ship was shoved back and its deck tilted.
Troops spilled out.
They judged it was better to head for land than drown.
The decision was instant.
The dog screamed for them to fight.
But his own side shoved him.
Someone toppled him.
Someone stepped on him and passed.
In that moment, loyalty became the lightest thing.
Cannon thundered again.
It was a boom that felt like the earth itself was shaking.
Only now did the fact sink in as terror—
a few shots could send a ship to the bottom.
That sound was larger than steel.
Larger than orders.
They tore off armor.
The sound of iron sinking rang again and again.
They jumped into the water.
Cold slammed over them like it would cut their breath in half.
Swim, or die.
Rush to shore, or freeze to death.
Death was ahead, and death was behind.
Broken ships floated on the surface.
On them, bodies lay face-down and unmoving.
Underwater, arms and legs tangled.
Screams sank and vanished.
When they reached land, another death waited.
They shoved the fleeing aside.
They stepped on the fallen.
They treated each other like enemies.
"Same side" lost meaning.
Meanwhile, at sea, Goryeo ships calmly broke enemy hulls.
They did not chase ashore.
They did not land.
They simply destroyed each fleeing ship, one by one, without omission.
No surge forward.
No anger.
They moved as if sorting, as if calculating, as if closing.
After about one shijin, not a single intact warship remained in Shimonoseki Harbor.
Only a few fishing boats were left, and a few small message craft that had never made it out to sea.
Every warship was broken—burned, sunk, overturned.
The sea grew quiet again.
"Back!"
At Park Seong-jin's shout, the entire force roared and turned back.
They struck the gunwales with whatever they held and cheered.
"Uwaaahhh!"