The Admiral who gave the Japanese a bloody nose in the Imjin War has no fewer than three websites to his name: www.koreanischerheld.com exclusively for German readership, www.koreanpatriot.net for a multilingual audience (including English), and www.koreanhero.net which is an html version of a glossy book on his achievements. He himself can be contacted, through some timewarp worthy of the film “Il Mare”, via his hotmail account admiralyi at hotmail dot com. Beautifully printed copies of this book — probably around 2,000 copies — were being handed out for free at the Korea Fantasy concert in Croydon on May 1st, courtesy of the Korean embassy. I’ll do a brief review once I’ve had a chance to read it (now available here).
I can only assume this initiative is part of a concerted effort to promote a Korean version of history. The cover page proclaims it is volume one in the Korean Spirit and Culture Series, and its subtitle reads: “A historical account of Admiral Yi’s uninterrupted string of victories, brilliant tactics, and noble spirit that defeated the Japanese who invaded Korea with 300,000 troops in 1592 and 1597”. Sounds like it’s going to be a swashbuckling read.