Park Wi’s Tsushima Expedition

Park Wi led 100 warships against Tsushima, then a base of the pirates, burning some 300 pirate ships and bringing home captured Goryeo people.

Following calls by Jeong Ji and others to strike the pirates at their source rather than merely fend them off, Park Wi, commander of Gyeongsang, crossed to Tsushima in the second month of 1389, the first year of King Chang. His forces burned the ships in harbour and the houses along the shore and brought back more than a hundred captured men and women.

By striking the pirates’ base directly, the expedition helped break their momentum. Early Joseon followed it up in 1419, when Yi Jong-mu attacked Tsushima again under King Sejong.