Military history of Goguryeo

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Han,Cao Wei,Sui,Tang-Goguryeo wars

Map of the Three Kingdoms of Korea at the end of the 5th century

Date	Han dynasty – 668
Location	Manchuria, Northern Korean Peninsula, Yellow Sea

Belligerents

Goguryeo

Han Dynasty
Former Yan
Sui Dynasty
Tang Dynasty

Commanders and leaders

King Taejo
Yoo Yu
King Micheon
King Gwanggaeto the Great
King Jangsu
Eulji Mundeok
Gang Yi-sik
King Yeongryu
Yeon Gaesomun
Yang Manchun
Yeon Namgeon

Guanqiu Jian
Murong Huang
Sui Yangdi
Yu Zhongwen
Lai Hu'er
Yuwen Shu
Zhou Luohou
Tang Taizong
Li Shiji
Pang Xiaotai
Xue Rengui

Strength

approximately 200,000

(1,138,000 foot soldiers and total of more than 3,000,000 in invasion of 612, approximately 300,000 in invasion of 645.)

The Goguryeo-China wars were a series of wars between Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, and various Dynasties of China.

Goguryeo-Han/Cao Wei Wars

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Goguryeo became a significant independent kingdom in the first century, and expanded its power in the region. By the time of Taejo of Goguryeo in 53, the five tribes became five centrally ruled districts of the kingdom, and foreign relations and the military were controlled by the king. Taejo successfully expanded Goguryeo by attacking Han China's commanderies of Lelang, Xiantu, and Liaodong, becoming fully independent from the Han commanderies.

Continuing its expansion to the northwest, Goguryeo began large-scale, organized attacks against the Chinese, as well as conquering neighboring statelets such as Okjeo and Dongye. In 244, Guanqiu Jian, a general of Han's successor state Cao Wei, defeated King Dongcheon and briefly occupied Goguryeo's capital, but did not hold the territory permanently.

As Goguryeo extended its reach into the Liaodong peninsula, the last Han Chinese commandery, at Lelang, was destroyed by Micheon of Goguryeo in 313, and the Three Kingdoms dominated the peninsula.

Goguryeo-Yan War

The expansion met temporary setbacks when in 342, Former Yan, of Xianbei ethnicity, attacked Goguryeo’s capital and captured it briefly, taking the body of King Micheon (the father of then-reigning King Gogugwon) and the queen dowager (King Gogugwon's mother) as collateral for Goguryeo's submission. However, by 409, the end of Former Yan's first successor state Later Yan, Goguryeo appears to have captured all territory east of the Liao River previously held by Former Yan and Later Yan, and in 408 established peaceful relations with Gao Yun, the ruler of Later Yan's successor state Northern Yan, who was a descendant of Goguryeo's royal house. In 436, when Feng Hong, brother and successor of Gao Yun's successor Feng Ba, could not withstand Northern Wei attacks, he evacuated his people to Goguryeo territory. When he subsequently tried to rule part of Goguryeo territory as an independent state, however, he was killed by Goguryeo's King Jangsu. King Jangsu and his successors subsequently undertook the policy of maintaining peaceful relations with both China's Northern Dynasties (Northern Wei, Northern Qi, Northern Zhou, and Sui Dynasty) and Southern Dynasties (Liu Song, Southern Qi, Liang Dynasty, and Chen Dynasty), and there would not be major conflicts between Goguryeo and any Chinese state until Sui unified China by destroying Chen in 589.

Goguryeo-Sui Wars

Main article:Goguryeo-Sui Wars.

The Sui Dynasty was founded in 581. It grew in power and emerged as a powerful dynasty in China, defeating and conquering large forces of "Barbarians" (The Chinese, in their ages of doctrination of being the center of the world, deemed any people who were not Chinese as barbarians and officially named them derogatory names in their historical records) to the North, Northwest, West, and South of China. Many neighbors of China were now forced to pay yearly tribute to the Sui Dynasty. Finally, only Goguryeo was left to be brought to its knees, but Goguryeo did not give into demands for tributes and the following threats.

Additionally, Goguryeo's expansion conflicted with the Sui Dynasty and increased tensions. In 598 the Sui, provoked by Goguryeo military offensives (pre-emptive strike) in the Liaodong region, attacked Goguryeo in the first of the Goguryeo-Sui Wars. In this campaign, as with those that followed in 612, 613, and 614, Sui met with costly defeat.

One of Sui's most disastrous campaigns was the campaign of 612, in which Sui mobilised at least 1,138,000 combat troops. General Eulji Mundeok, led the Goguryeo troops to victory by luring the Sui troops into a trap outside of Pyongyang. At the Battle of Salsu River, Goguryeo soldiers released water from a dam, which overwhelmed the Chinese army and drowned nearly every Chinese soldier. Chinese histories record that of the over 305,000 Sui troops, a mere 2,700 returned.

The wars depleted the national treasury of the Sui Dynasty and after revolts and political strife, the Sui Dynasty disintegrated in 618. However the wars exhausted Goguryeo's strength and its power declined.

Goguryeo-Tang Wars

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Although Goguryeo had repulsed the Sui Dynasty, attacks by the Tang Dynasty from the west proved too formidable. by King Yeongryu. Under Tang Taizong, Sui's succeeding dynasty Tang Dynasty forged an alliance with Goguryeo's rival Silla after defeating Goguryeo's western ally, the Göktürks. In 642, 연개소문 Yeon Gaesomun killed King Yeongnyu and seized military control over the country.

Later in Tang Taizong reign, he also began campaigns against the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo, much to the opposition of many advisors. In 645, A war In the beginning. Taizong commanded an army of 100,000 Tang soldiers. Taizong's noted army enabled him to conquer a number of border city fortresses of Goguryeo (Yodong fortress 요동성, Gaemo fortress 개모성, Bisa fortress 비사성, Baekam fortress 백암성 fell). The Tang army in several cases defeated the Korean forces on open battlefields. Outside the Ansi Fort, Go Yeonsu and Go Hyezin had mobilized 150,000 troops, though it proved to be fruitless. After tatics by Taizong with Li Shiji commanding 15,000 men and Zhangsun Wuji with 11,000 coming from behind, the Korean generals were confused and defeated, the losses were 20,000 for the Koreans and 36,000 captured.(주필산 전투) This battle was won with 26,000 Tang troops in comparison to 150,000 Korean troops. The Tang army had won a significant victory over Goguryeo.

However, forts would be the one issue that the Tang Taizong couldn't solve, most particularly Ansi fortress itself. the remaining Goguryeo troops get in inside Ansi fortress. Ansi was under siege by the Tang army. However Tang was not able to conquer Ansi fortress. After a protracted siege, Taizong ordered the construction of a large siege ramp by making a mountain of soil to tower over the high Ansi walls. As the mountain rose higher, so did the walls as it was raised higher with wooden extensions. However the siege mountain collapsed, at the same time commander Yang Manchun (It should be noted that Yang was the only commander to defeat Yeon on the battlefield, as Yeon's earlier efforts to take the Ansi Fortress during the civil war that took place after Yeon's coup was unsuccessful.) mobilized the remaining Goguryeo troops to defeat the Tang army, even managing to wound the Tang Taizong himself in the eye. In the end, the Tang army retreated with heavy losses (many of the 10,000-20,000 deaths on the Tang side resulted from this siege). Taizong was defeated by not being able to take Ansi.(안시성 전투)

The 20th century Korean historical work Joseon Sangosa claimed that Yeon Gaesomun also defeated the Tang army. According to the Joseon Sangosa, as a result Goguryeo was able to repel the attack and Taizong, caught between Yang's forces in the front and Yeon's counter-attacking forces closing in behind him--as well as suffering from the harsh Manchurian winter was forced to flee back to China. With Yeon in close pursuit, Taizong's desperate, fleeing forces were decimated by Yeon, and Taizong himself barely escaped with his life. The account relayed in the Joseon Sangosa, however, directly contradicted Chinese accounts of an orderly retreat with minimal losses and no pursuit by Goguryeo forces, described in the Book of Tang, New Book of Tang, and the Zizhi Tongjian. The Joseon Sangosa's account is also contradicted by the ancient Korean history of the Three Kingdoms period, the Samguk Sagi.

After Taizong's death in 649, the conquest of Goguryeo and the personal rivalry with Yeon Gaesomun became an obsession with Taizong's son Gaozong. He invaded Goguryeo numerous times but Yeon turned the Tang back every time--perhaps most notably during Yeon's celebrated annihilation of the Tang forces in 662 at the Sasu River (蛇水) where the invading general Pang Xiaotai (龐孝泰) and all 13 of his sons were killed in the battle. As a result while Yeon Gaesomun was alive, Tang was not able to conquer the Goguryeo.

Fall

Goguryo's ally in the southwest, Baekje, fell to the Silla-Tang alliance in 661 the victorious allies continued their assault on Goguryeo for the next eight years. Meanwhile, in 666 (though dates vary from 664-666), Yeon Gaesomun died and civil war ensued among his three sons. One of his sons, Yeon Namsaeng fled to Tang and was a big part in the next invasion of Goguryeo by the Tang and served as the primary key to the downfall of Gogureyo, as only when he came did the Tang's emperor was willing to send troops to Goguryeo, since the defector knew the most of the weaknesses and shortcuts that Tang forces did not know of, into Goguryeo's fortified territory. . diagonally opposite another son, Yeon Namgeon resist in the face of death to his brother's treachery.

Silla-Tang eventually vanquished the weary kingdom, which had been suffering from a series of famines and internal strife. Goguryeo finally fell in 668.

Silla thus unified most of the Korean peninsula in 668, but the kingdom's reliance on China's Tang Dynasty had its price. Silla had to forcibly resist the imposition of Chinese rule over the entire peninsula, which they did and eventually expelled the Tang. Silla'a unification of Korea was short lived for the former Goguryeo General Dae Joyeong led the remnants of Goguryeo, united with the Mohe and established Balhae, Known to Koreans as the sucessor of Goguryeo and retained much of it's former territory. The Balhae Kingdom would become a buffer in trade and was a powerful empire that Tang could not bother. Their end would come from the Khitan tribe. This end was a descisive event in Northeast asian history for it was the last Korean Kingdom to hold Manchurian territory.

Notes and references

Graff, David A., Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300-900. ISBN 0-415-23954-0

New Book of Tang, vol. 220.
^ Samguk Sagi, vol. 21.
Book of Tang, vols. 3, 199.
New Book of Tang, vols. 2, 220.
Zizhi Tongjian, vols. 197, 198.
http://www.koreandb.net/Sam/bon/samkuk/04_210_1001155.htm

Korean Author, Google, reasonable thoughts, Drama Dae joyoung