Ungcheon Castle

Constructed in 1592-3 as a defensive bastion against Choseon "Righteous Armies" and attacks by Admiral Yi Sun Shin's navy, Ungcheon Castle dominated a small hillock overlooking Korea's southern coast.  Characterized by a pair of very long walls stretching down the hill to encompass a protected harbor, Ungheon would have made quite the impression from land or sea.  As for the first Catholic Mass on Korean soil, most people today miss the fact that a great number of the invading samurai and ashigaru troops of Hideyoshi's invasion force were Catholic Christians from the island of Kyushu.  Konishi Yukinaga and most of his men are know to have been Christian as well and brought several foreign priests along with them as they fought their way to Pyeongyang and back.

(click to view enlarged pictures)

First Sight of Ungcheon's Long Walls

The easiest way to visit the castle is from the land-side.  As with most of the waeseong sites, abandoned since 1598, the hill upon which the castle was constructed is grown over with trees and there is no view of it from a distance.  Parking and following a marked path, this is the first sight a visitor gets of Ungcheon's characteristic long walls.  As with other sites, the lower the wall section on the hill, the less stone remains.  This means the wall gains in height and creates a more formidable impression as one climbs.

Ruined Wall Corner

Uncgheon is in far worse shape than Seosaengpo, and so it is difficult to ascertain exactly what you're looking at when reaching a structure like this.  The crumbled section is clearly the corner of one of the walls delineating a Japanese castle's defensive rings, but it is hard to tell which ring is depicted.  At least one artist's rendition seems to imply that the lower defensive rings were wood and plaster only, with no masonry base, though it is unclear whether or not that is only on the sea side and thus sandwiched between the castle's long walls, or surrounding the entire fortification.

Main Gate Complex Looking Into the Castle

This crumbling, V-shaped structure marks the turns leading into a Japanese castle gate complex.  This one was fairly large and opened up on the land side facing north.

Ungcheon's Tenshu Ruin

As you can see, not much remains of the castle's original tenshu, though if you look carefully, you can almost make out the stone stairway that would have led up into the donjon, the wooden superstructure that towered over Japanese castles, on the right side of the picture.

Outer Trace of the Inner Defensive Ring Wall

This gives some idea of the width of the stone walls that made up Japanese waeseong.  This picture shows the wall of the inner bailey facing the southern or sea side of the castle.  From wood and plaster battlements atop these walls defenders could have looked down upon the area contained within the two long walls.