Panokseon - Weapons

Weapons

Panokseons had on board several varieties of cannon, such as those named Heaven, Earth, Black and Yellow. Heaven was the largest cannon with the greatest range and the most common cannon on the ships. Earth was a smaller cannon and Black and Yellow were smaller still. The Heaven cannon fired daejeon (a long, thick arrow in the shape of a rocket) with a range of 500 m (1,650 ft), as well as cheolhwan (cannon shot) which could travel up to a distance of 1 km (3300 ft). Wangu, a kind of mortar, which fired stones or shells with a radius of 20cm (7.8 in), was also used by the Korean navy. Hwachas were also used on panokseons.

Another noteworthy aspect of Korea’s heavy fire-arms is that they were not all invented to meet the sudden emergency of war. These weapons in fact made their appearance some 200 years prior to Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea. Thanks to the efforts of Choe Mu-seon, a general and a chemist, Korea began manufacturing and developing gunpowder and power-based weapons. Korean cannons first saw action in 1380 against a large fleet of Japanese pirate ships, and were found to be a great success.

In the 15th century, under the lead of King Sejong, who was himself a pioneer of scientific research, the performance of these heavy artillery improved dramatically. Having built a cannon range next to the Royal Court, and after much experimentation and study, King Sejong finally increased the extent of the cannons’ firepower from 300 m (980 ft) to 1000 m (3,100 ft). Naval cannons were also developed at this time and among them, Heaven, Earth, Black and Yellow cannon were later employed by Yi Sun-sin. The development of artillery steadily continued after King Sejong, and saw the invention of the Bigyeokjincholloe, a timed grenade that flung out hundreds of metal shards upon explosion, and the Dapoki, a machine capable of firing many arrows at once. One of the types of cannons were arrows with a pipe filled with gunpowder that went right through as many as 10 ships making devastating holes.

During Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea, Korea lacked advanced muskets, but had several types of powerful cannons.