Master Yi, his inspiration, his lore, and historical references in League

Disclaimer: I realize some of this stuff has been posted to the boards before, however the posts hardly picked up any traction, and I believe this information should be more widespread.

While browsing wikipedia and reading about the Sengoku Jidai period of Japan, I read Toyotomi Hideyoshi's page and his conquest of China via Korea.

His plan was to occupy mainland Korea as a route to move into China and as a supply line. Hideyoshi had a far superior land force compared to any Asian army of the time, and victory seemed inevitable, if not for the far less developed, albeit large Japanese navy. One man had the will, mind, and tactical prowess to outmaneuver and eliminate entire Japanese fleets without casualty.

That man was Admiral Yi Sun-sin.

After looking more into Admiral Yi, I found his story incredibly compelling, and there were some very interesting parallels between both Admiral Yi's and Master Yi's. For one, they both fought their respective battles defending their homeland, battled a much larger force than their own, and showed utter mastery of their respective fighting styles.

It might be cool to see this referenced somewhere else besides Yi's lore somewhere eventually, but that begs the question: "Why would Master Yi have a samurai skin if they were more or less his mortal enemies?"

It was most likely because Riot wanted to reference his accomplishments, while making a skin that was at least somewhat appealing to their mass audience at the time, since nothing really says 1400-1600CE Asia like the iconic samurai, but I think it'd be cool if Yi got some type of admiral skin net time Riot makes a set of Bilgewater skins.

The link included is an easy to digest summary of the events involving Admiral Yi, and you can definitely spot some connections to the Noxian invasion of Ionia.