Twitter is burning over allegations that his family members worked under the Japanese colonial government in Korea during the period when Korea was a colony of Japan.
His surname, Tokuno, is very rare in Japan, with about 3,000 people bearing it, but it has been identified from the records of the Government-General of Korea that a number of people named Tokuno worked there. It seems we will have to wait for the facts.
Within Korea, the perception of the Korean government at the time of the Imjin War is not good. The government has a very incompetent image.
The image of them being helplessly defeated by the Japanese army became fixed. Also, the assessment that they won the war because of the activities of militias organized by ordinary people and the Ming army, along with the navy led by Yi Sunshin cutting off the supply lines, became common.
This is because people have come to encounter many historical materials centered on narratives. However, relatively recently, historical studies centered on data have emerged. These studies reveal completely different facts.
It is true that Japan pushed into Korean territory with unstoppable force at the beginning of the war. However, this lasted for only two months. As Korea quickly reorganized its battle lines, the tide of the war started to turn. During the war, at least 224,000 Japanese troops participated, and about 140,000 of them died on Korean land or were evacuated to Japan with fatal injuries. Over 60 percent of the participating Japanese troops were lost.
It is true that the Ming army participated in the war, but the Ming army fought only two large-scale battles against the Japanese army. Out of 47 large-scale battles, 31 were led by the government army. 11 battles were led by militias, but since Korea had a wartime conscription system at the time, they should be viewed as reservists by modern standards.
Of course, it is important to highlight how much influence heroes like Yi Sunshin had on the course of the war. A more nuanced understanding becomes possible when we also examine how Korea, which had a strong centralized administrative system at the time, responded to the war.