Changwon Ungcheon Waeseong

History & origins

Ungcheon Waeseong was one of the fortresses used by Japanese forces along Korea’s southern coast during the Imjin War, built or adapted along the ridges of Namsan between Jepo Bay and Angol Bay. Its position allowed relatively easy control of both land and sea routes and offered convenient links toward Angolpo, Gadeokdo, and Geoje. The Academy of Korean Studies describes the site as a base where the Japanese commander Konishi Yukinaga encamped and which served as a secondary military base.

Different records and interpretations survive regarding the construction of the fortress. Older material attributes its construction to Kato Kiyomasa, while another interpretation holds that Japanese forces may have remodeled an earlier Korean fortification known as Ungpo Fortress. Only parts of the former walls and terraces remain, but the site still shows a Japanese-style arrangement with a main enclosure on the summit and successive outer enclosures below it. It is therefore safer not to identify a single builder with certainty, but to understand the site as evidence of prolonged Japanese occupation and the coastal military system of the Imjin War.

The link with Catholic history comes from the tradition that Fr. Cespedes, then resident in Japan, came to this fortress and carried out religious activity before returning to Japan. He is remembered as one of the earliest Western Catholic clergy to enter the Korean peninsula during the war, and Ungcheon Waeseong is listed by the Catholic Church in Korea as a Catholic shrine and historical site connected with that presence. This memory also requires attention to the complicated fact that the missionary encounter occurred within the violent circumstances of war.

Today the site has a double character: it is both a protected fortress heritage site and a Catholic historical site. The surviving walls convey the military history of the Imjin War, while the memory associated with Fr. Cespedes points to an episode of contact between Joseon and the Western Catholic world long before a Korean Catholic community was formed. Reading these two layers together gives a fuller understanding of the historical significance of Changwon Ungcheon Waeseong.