Jindo

Jindo's island position off southwestern Korea made it a refuge and a strategic maritime base. In 1270 the Sambyeolcho forces rejected the Goryeo court's accommodation with the Mongols and established a rival royal centre at Yongjang on the island. Defeat forced them onward to Jeju. This earlier episode left Jindo with the remains and memory of a fortified resistance base before the beginning of the Joseon period.

The narrow waters beside the island again became important in 1597. At Myeongnyang, also called Uldolmok, Admiral Yi Sun-sin led thirteen vessels against a much larger Japanese force and won a major naval victory. The battle made the passage between Jindo and the mainland a lasting place of commemoration. In 1688 a stone monument was erected on the Haenam side to honour Yi's achievements. The island and its neighbouring channel thus formed a linked military landscape: an older refuge for an armed opposition and, centuries later, a passage central to the defence of Joseon.