Nanjung Ilgi: War Diary of Admiral Yi Sun-sin

Handwritten journal of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, written during the Japanese invasions of 1592-1598. It consists of seven volumes of notes written almost daily from January 1592 through November 1598, until the days before Yi Sun-si was killed on the cusp of a decisive victory, in the last sea battle of the war. The diary is without equal in world history as a commander's battlefield accounts. Written as a personal journal, it describes in detail the daily combat situations, the admiral's personal views and feelings, observations on the weather, topographical features of battlefields and the lives of common people. The style is simple and elegant. This war diary has been widely used in modern Western countries as well as in Korea to study the sea battles during the seven-year war. Read more on the UNESCO Memory of the World website.