충무공이순신

The single-sided sword and the two-sided sword were the most representative short weapons from the personally portable weapons of the soldiers in the Joseon Dynasty. The single-sided sword has its blade only is one side in curved line and the handle is long without the sheath. It was mainly used for fatality effect by cutting. On the other hand, the two-sided sword has the blade on both sides with the straight line, and it has shorter handle than the single-sided sword with the sheath. The two-sided sword has the high fatality effect in thrusting and piercing.

The most representative sword from the combat single and two-sided sword of Joseon emphasized its self-defense function and the focus was in the convenience of carriage and defense in emergency that the length has been shortened naturally. Consequently, the single-sided sword and two-sided sword was pushed aside ad the combat weapon to be the auxiliary weapon of bow and arrow that it was only for the self defensive use for individual soldiers.
It is evident that swordmanship was not a part of the examination that the advancement thereof up to the time of Imjin War was hardly anything for an expectation.

Two-sided Sward and Single-sided Sword

With this aspect, the western missionaries who participated with the Japanese forces during the Imjin War assessed as "the sword normally used by the people of Joseon is very short and thin." In addition, Yoo Seong-ryong also lamented that "the solders of Joseon learned only the bow and arrow without learning any other skills." Consequently, the Joseon forces had to be at disadvantage from the Japanese forces in the close distance battle by using the weapons at short distance.