True super hero in real history

I have to agree. Lord Nelson had the British industrial revolution in its infancy to back him up, he was part of the aristocrisy from birth, etc.

Yi Sun-sin had to raise an army, had to raise the food and shelter for his troops on his own, he had to invent modern naval warfare, had to summon ships from 100 years earlier and modify them and adapt his tactics to these ships. When Won Gyun stole Yi's command in 1597, he didn't understand how Yi won his battles or how to use his tactics and he squandered Yi's entire fleet in under 4 months. Yi was undefeated in over 23 battles. That record stands alone.

Yi had to endure demotion to private in the army TWICE in his career. This guy had been through it all. He had seen it all. He lived a truly meaninful life.

Gillies, Nelson was not a member of the Arisocracy - he was the son in a clergyman. Though his family has enough connections to gain him a toehold in the Royal Navy, it took a mixture of natural abiity and being available at fortuitous times to propel his career. As C in C in the Mediterranean, he actually did have to arrange for the provisioning, watering and maintenance of his fleet with rather limited avenues of access (Napoleon had trounced or terrified most of the states where Nelson could look for assistance).

Admiral of Left Cholla province, Yi Sun Sin (or Yi Sun Shin) is one of East Asia's greatest heroes, except to the Japanese. Yi is a hero known even in China.

Japan under generalissimo Hideyoshi was prepared to launch its early version of the so-called East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a façade for Japanese domination and economic exploitation of East Asia. A successful Japanese invasion through Korea into Ming China and possibly further into Central Asia to India would have changed the course of Asian history for the worse. At horrendous cost in lives and destruction, the Koreans and the Chinese repelled the Japanese but could not inflict a decisive defeat to cause a Japanese evacuation. That only came when Hideyoshi died and his top generals ordered the Japanese evacuation from a lost cause.

The Japanese would return in 1910 and successfully conquer Korea. The Japanese proceeded with the conquest of China in 1937 but were unable to conquer the entire country due to its vastness. A bloody stalemate ensued. It took the Americans, coming from the east across the Pacific to overpower the Japanese empire and force its unconditional surrender finally through the use of two atomic bombs in August 1945. Japan and its military dreams of Asian conquest were finished for good.