Jeongungong Sunui Stele

Standing at Morundae, this stele commemorates the righteous death of General Jeong Un, manho (military magistrate) of Nokdo, who fought fiercely at the very front of the attack as Right Flank Commander in the Battle of Busanpo (1 September 1592) during the Japanese invasions of 1592, and died there in battle. When the Japanese invasions broke out, General Jeong Un served under Yi Sun-sin, Left Naval Commander of Jeolla. He argued that the enemy should be struck before reaching the Honam region, and personally requested to lead the attack from the front. He also distinguished himself in the naval battles of Okpo, Sacheon, and Hansando, and again led the vanguard in the attack on Busanpo, where the Japanese fleet was based. The stele's inscription records that when the general, leading the navy's vanguard, met the Japanese forces below Morundae, he resolved to die there, since the character for "cloud" (雲) in Morundae (沒雲臺) shared its sound with the character for "fate" (運) in his own name, and so he fought on until he fell a martyr; the Chungjanggong Silgi (a record of the deeds of General Jeong Un, whose posthumous title was Chungjanggong) and the Chungmugong Jeonseo (the complete works of Yi Sun-sin, whose posthumous title was Chungmugong) likewise record that he died a martyr in the Battle of Busanpo. The stele is a simple rectangular form with its top edge rounded. It was erected in the twenty-second year of King Jeongjo (1798), when Jeong Hyeok, General Jeong Un's eighth-generation descendant, came to serve as Cheomsa (garrison commander) of Dadae; its inscription was composed by Min Jong-hyeon, Minister of Personnel, and written by Seo Yu-dae, Commander of the Military Training Command. In 1974 the city of Busan built a stele pavilion to protect it.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Saha-gu, Busan

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물