Japanese Korea: A world without Yi Sun-sin

This is my very first post on this forum, and I'm looking forward to hear your opinion on this.
First of all, sorry for my bad English.

Among professional historians, there are several rival opinions about what prompted Toyotomi Hideyoshi to invade Korea. In accordance with one of them, Toyotomi and thus tried to strengthen his domestic political position (a third-party version is prominent historian Arano Yasunori). In accordance with another, he will remove the possible opposition situation: if in the European countries the number of the nobility fluctuated in the region of 1.5-3% (in Zhechi Pospolita, glorious for its nobleman's freedom and permanently on the verge of anarchy, the number of the nobility was ca. 8% of the total population), in Japan the size of the caste was equal to about 10% of the total population - after that, thousands of younger sons who did not receive soyen (the same as the major) and the ronin who lost their suzeraines, zanim were robbery and robbery, walked into criminal gangs and pirates borokudan Waco, became mercenaries in China and Korea.
Be that as it may, a well-armed Japanese expeditionary force, which, among other things, possesses firearms, defeated the incompetent Joseon's army within four months. Only the successful actions of the brilliant naval commander Yi Sun-sin made it possible to cut supply through the Tensen Kaikyo: in July 1592, the Joseon's fleet near Khansan Island not losing even a single ship, using smaller forces (56 ships from Li Sun-sin against 133 ships from Kiki Yoshitaki) defeated (the Japanese lost 66 ships) the Japanese fleet. The Chinese Emperor Wanli sent a 30-thousand-strong army to Korea in January 1593, which defeated the excess supply and inferior to the Chinese army, Konishi Yukinaga (about 18 thousand people) in the second battle of Pyongyang. The Japanese began to withdraw troops to the southeastern parts of the peninsula, defeating the Chinese troops, entrenched in the province of Gyeongsang and in the summer of 1593 entered into negotiations with the Chinese. The war was replaced by a two-year truce, and Korea was de facto divided between Japan and China.
And now comes the alternative: suppose Yi Sun-sin dies six years earlier - for example because of tuberculosis on May 21, 1592, just two days prior to the war. The new commander-in-chief of the fleet is Von Gyun, who did not manage to slip any serious obstacle to supplying the Japanese expeditionary army in Korea. The Japanese are drawing additional forces into Korea, the number of Japanese troops is over 200 thousand. The Konishi's army fights off the Chinese January attack of 1593 at Pyongyang with the same ease as the summer of 1592. The Japanese go to the border of the Ming Empire in the lower reaches of the Yalu River. The war is moving into a protracted phase, by the beginning of 1594 the Sino-Japanese negotiations are under way. In the 1590s, the Japanese invaders fought with the Liibong partisans, and on the northern borders - with the Jurchen nomads. In 1598 Toyotomi dies, Tokugawa Ieyasu - one of the members of the regency council under the young Toyotomi Hideyori - usurps power and becomes first the "Great Minister" of Daidzyo-daijin, and five years later - the shogun.
This is how Korea has become part of the Japanese empire.

Any ideas what will happen next?
 
I would say that while Yi ensured the Japanese would be defeated, at the same time him not existing does not mean the Japanese would win. You have to remember that the Japanese were trying for a short campaign, while the Koreans are used to turtling it to the end (see the thirty years of conflict with the Mongols). It'll be a test of whether Japan can break down the Koreans before the eventual breakdown of logistics, and I would be betting on the Koreans on this.
 
You have a good point, but I personally think that there would be no other military commander like him, who would use his army to defeat other country's army, which is twice (or even thrice) as large as the defeater's...
 
The thing is that, even if the Japanese manage to completely defeat the Korean regular forces, the war won't end there. Korea is an extremely mountainous country, which makes it good for gerrilla warfare. The Koreans are going to resist until the very end, and Japan probably doesn't have the resources for more than a relatively short campaign.
 
The thing is that, even if the Japanese manage to completely defeat the Korean regular forces, the war won't end there. Korea is an extremely mountainous country, which makes it good for gerrilla warfare. The Koreans are going to resist until the very end, and Japan probably doesn't have the resources for more than a relatively short campaign.

Japan was mountainous as well, If there is no Korean navy to stop Japanese supplies, then I don't see a long guerrilla warfare period being likely. Then again the Japanese had a poor navy and naval tactics to boot, Japanese Korea is impossible without an earlier POD, but a POD like could butterfly the need in first place. Japanese ships, for the most part, concentrated on boarding actions and Japanese ships were more used to their local seas.
 
Japan was mountainous as well, If there is no Korean navy to stop Japanese supplies, then I don't see a long guerrilla warfare period being likely. Then again the Japanese had a poor navy and naval tactics to boot, Japanese Korea is impossible without an earlier POD, but a POD like could butterfly the need in first place. Japanese ships, for the most part, concentrated on boarding actions and Japanese ships were more used to their local seas.
Just because they're both mountainous doesn't remove the defensive advantages that forest and mountain terrain provides, especially in unfamiliar lands. The Korean guerillas have intimate knowledge of the land that the Japanese do not. Plus, they have plenty of motivation to continue fighting instead of enduring the slaughter, rape, and enslavement of Japanese occupation (Ear Mounds, kidnapping, slavery were all rather common during the war. Hideyoshi sold plenty of Koreans to the Portuguese, apparently). Korea historically hasn't taken kindly to being conquered (Tang, Mongols, Japanese, Manchu) and has a history of resisting at any cost.
 
I wonder how a Japanese Korea is going to affect the collapse of the Ming? Could we see the Japanese "pull a Qing" so to speak?
 
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