What did Koreans do during the Mongolian domination?

This morning, I had a chat with one of my Japanese friends, and he seems to know about Korea. On my blackboard, he wrote 1392 from his memory as the year Yi dynasty started. He also wrote 1443 as the year the Hangeul characters were promulgated, and he also wrote on the board "Un-moon" in Chinese characters. Frankly, I could not do these even though I often bragg about my memory power. He even said that the Mongolian army could not cross the Korean strait because they were on Korean-made ships which were too weak to withstand Taiphoon. He then asked me whether Koreans intentionally built those inferior-quality ships to destroy the Mongolian army.

Statue of Sienkiewicz in Warsaw.

I told him that those Korean ships had to be inferior because Korea's best wood-crafters had to work on a more important project. They were carving 80,000 wooden plates for the 80,000-page scripture on Buddhism.

I often say that this 80,000-page scripture is like Henryk Sienkiewicz's "Quo Vadis." For writing this novel, Poland's Sienkiewicz got the 1905 Nobel prize in literature. Koreans carved the 80,000 wooden plates in order to protect their own "philosophy" (whatever it means) and Sienkiwwicz wrote the Quo Vadis in order to guard Poland's "philosophy."

Japan's Kawabata Yasunari killed himself because he could not find Japan's own "philosophy," but he did enough work to receive the 1968 Nobel prize in literature while he was alive.

PS. Here is my webpage on Poland.