The History of China - #89 - Tang 8: Clash on the Borderlands

Episode Date: February 15, 2016

Tang China goes to town on its neighbors over the course of the mid-7th century. First, the Western Regions of central Asia will feel the full force of a reunited Middle Kingdom, culminating in the collapse and Chinese annexation of the whole Western Turkic Khannate, putting Chinese borders (briefly) right up against Persia. Then, Emperor Gaozong will commit himself to completing what his father begun: the final destruction of Goguryeo. but this time he'll enlist the aid of South Korean Silla to carve out a toehold on the peninsula to give himself a better shot at success. But when a Japanese war-fleet responds to North Korean pleas for aid, it will be a showdown on the high seas for which Asian power will control the Korean Peninsula. Time Period Covered: 649-673 CE Major Historical Figures: Tang: Emperor Gaozong (Li Zhi) Empress Wu Zhao General Su Dingfang "The Turk Destroyer" General Li Shiji Western Türkic Kaghanate (Onoq): Dielishi Kaghan Shabulou Khan (Ashina Holu) Grousset, René. Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia Karam Skaff. Jonathan. Sui-Tang China and Its Turko-Mongol Relations Ō no Yasumaro, Prince Toneri. Nihon Shoki. Sima, Guang. Zizhi Tongjian Twitchett, Denis (ed.), Weschler, Howard. The Cambridge History of China, vol. 3 Unger, J.M. "The Role of Contact in the Origins of the Japanese and Korean Languages." Yi, Pae-yong. Women in Korean History Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the Age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters in modern history.

Look for the Age of Napoleon wherever you find your podcasts. Before launching in today, I invite you to also try out the Agora Network's History of the Papacy by Stephen Guerra, which explores the fascinating story of the Christian and ultimately Catholic Church, and with the millennia of intrigue, conflict, and salvation that go with it. You can find The History of the Papacy on iTunes, or on any podcatcher service of your choice, or through the Agora Network at www.agorapodcastnetwork.com. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 89, Clash on the Borderlands.

Last episode, we were stuck inside Emperor Gaozong's and Empress Wu's capital on the move, as they went back and forth and back and forth between Chang'an and Luoyang at the Empress's superstitious insistence. Their two-decade period of dual reign was fraught with splendor, intrigue, and more executions and forced suicides than you could shake a stick at as Wu Zhao clung tenaciously to the power she had spent a lifetime amassing for herself. And when Gaozong died, she had engineered the royal court, again through copious bloodletting, to ensure that when her young son came to the throne, she'd be safely ensconced as his regent. But we're not going to talk about all that today. In fact, it will probably be a too--week period before we get back to the royal palace and the Empress Dowager. Because today, we're going to focus on the other side of Gaozong's

time in power, his foreign policy. And by foreign policy, I of course mean just so much warfare. So, let's jump right in. When he had first taken up his father's imperial mantle and ascended to the throne in the front of the late great Taizong's own coffin back in 649, Emperor Gaozong had by every possible measure inherited an empire ascendant. bloodying his hand time and again against Korean Goguryeo. That one failure was neither as destabilizing as it had proved for the Sui, nor a general marker of his overall military track record. As we ended off back in episode 85, that admittedly costly blemish had been a one-off for Taizong, and on the whole, completely eclipsed by his glorious successes to the north and the west, capped off as it had been by him proclaiming himself the Tiankehan of all the Turks and rendering their once mighty empire his own vassal peoples. It was this very strong setup that Gaozong had inherited, China larger and stronger than

it had been in centuries, and in his time in power he would take his father's accomplishments to their logical and largest conclusion. We're going to begin today on the westernmost frontiers of the Tang Empire, as it was forced to contend with… the Turks. Yeah. Again. As you recall, Taizong had indeed brought the eastern Turkic Khans to heel. But there was, of course, another group that had split off from their Eastern brethren following a civil war in the mid-6th century, the Western Turkic Khanate. This was the name given by the Chinese, or as they rendered it, the Shi Tuzhe. Like virtually all powerful steppe empires, though, the Turks themselves only formed the upper echelon of a vast pyramid of confederated tribes paying them vassalage.

These sometimes wildly different peoples were made up of tribal groups, some of which might sound familiar, including the Oghuz, the Onagur, Khazars, Utigur, Uyghurs, and probably most familiarly, the Bulgars and even the Huns. Their name for themselves appears to have been the Onok, which translates as the Ten Arrows, an arrow being a reference to what they called their political and military subdivision within the Khanate. The Old Book of Tang further explains, quote,

Soon after 635, Dièlì shì Khag'hàn divided his state into ten parts, and each was headed by one man. Together, they made up the ten divisions. Every division was given an arrow by him, thus they were known as the Ten Arrows. Each took command of one arrow, and called themselves as the Ten Arrows. Thereafter, each arrow was also known as one tribe, and the Tang Chinese didn't exactly get on, and their relationship had been fraught from the outset with hostility and tension. Nevertheless, Emperor Gazu had widely taken a page from the military stratagems of the first emperor of Qin himself, Qin Shi Huang,

and allied with distant states in order to crush those nearer. To that end, the western Turks had proven to be useful idiots indeed. But with the final destruction of the eastern Khanate by Taizong in 629, that usefulness had reached its end point. The western Khagan had seen which way the wind was blowing and played it safe by pledging his nominal submission to the Tang, and even replacing their former Khan with another who had personally pledged fealty to the Chinese throne. But that embarrassing promise of submission would barely outlast Taizong's funeral. And when his young and untested son, Gaozong, came to power in 649, well, all bets were off. One of the former Turkish Khan's subordinates and kinsmen, named Ashina Holu, had been proclaimed a Tang army general after he had defected, but when Gaozong took the throne, Holu would double

cross his new commission and defect back to the Turks, overthrowing the puppet Khan and establishing himself as the independent Shabulo Khan in 651. In short order, Shabulo would reunite the tribes of the Turin Basin under the Turkic banners and come to rule an area, according to Weschler, that stretched, quote, beyond the pyramids to the borders of Persia, end quote. For more than half a decade, the revitalized horde of Shabulo Khan would raid across the Chinese borders and terrorize its populace. Inevitably, this would draw a response from the Tang army, and in 657, Gaozong mobilized

it against the Western Turkic menace under the command of General Su Dingfang, and with two of the insurgent Khan's rival Ashina clansmen as his lieutenants to put the Western Turks down once and for all. So you got all that? Yeah, I thought so. Not confusing at all, right? Just kidding of course. The multiple intersecting layers of these types of multi-ethnic, multi-tribal coalitions

is by their very nature Byzantine in the worst possible sense, and almost impossible to really keep a clear understanding of, since they're just constantly shifting and changing as one clansman rises or falls or is killed or simply loses favor. And it isn't just me saying this from my comfortable vantage point in the 21st century. Even the Chinese, at the time, and for centuries to come, were just as flummoxed by these groups of loosely affiliated clans and their indecipherable command chains. That explains, in large part, why no matter how many times the Han, or the Jin, or the Sui, or now the Tang, kept hammering them down, they'd always just pop right back up, seemingly little worse for the wear. Jonathan Karam-Skaff writes in his book, Sui-Tong China and Its Turko-Mongol Relations,

From the perspective of the Tong court, tribal management could be a headache that entailed discerning the intentions of various frontier military commanders and Turko-Mongol chiefs, each with his own interests that might diverge from the courts. Negotiations were ongoing. So what could have possibly justified this sort of eternal negotiation with every single petty commander at every level of society for each little concession or point? Scaf continues, quote, the payoff, justifying the nuisances, was a ready supply of highly skilled cavalry available to meet military exigencies, end quote. In other words, the promise of horses and people really, really good at riding and fighting on them.

So that's one of the big reasons why Tang China was so keen to secure the lands that were so far from their center of power. But back to the military campaign, though. General Su had been selected because, over the course of his long career, he had developed something of a reputation as a Turk destroyer. He had risen to prominence as an officer of the Sui army more than two decades earlier, when the unit he had commanded had been the one to lead the assault against the Khan of the Eastern Turks, Ilig Kirgan, thereby ending the Eastern Turks altogether. Nevertheless, it was a relatively small force that Su now would be commanding against his Western foe, at least by Chinese standards, and it perhaps numbered only about 20,000

strong, with about half of that consisting of Uyghur auxiliary cavalrymen. That might sound potentially unreliable, but since the only way to really deal with steppe cavalry was with more steppe cavalry, there weren't too many other options, and regardless, the Uyghurs were smart enough to know that if they assisted the Tang and then won, their place within the Central Asian hierarchy would be vastly improved. This combined force of Chinese and Uyghurs would set out from Ordos, in modern Inner Mongolia, in March of 657, and they would make their way westward more than 3,000 miles. The journey would take some eight months to complete, and would see them crossing some of

the most inhospitable terrain on the planet. Even the snows of winter wouldn't halt their trek across the Asian interior, in spite of its subordinates pleased to call a halt in this insane weather and just wait already for spring to continue the march. In response, General Su was recorded as saying, according to René Grousseau's absolute tome on Central Asian empires, the Empire of the Steppes, quote, The fog shed darkness everywhere. The wind is icy. The barbarians do not believe that we can campaign at this season.

Thus, let us hasten to surprise them. The Tang army would catch up to the Turkic Khagan's force in late November along the Irtysh River at the foot of the Altai Mountains, where the modern borders of China, Mongolia, Russia, and Kazakhstan all converge. Tong scouts reported back to General Su that they were badly outnumbered, perhaps as much as five to one, with estimates of the Turkic force as high as 100,000 cavalrymen. So a frontal assault was right out of the question. Instead, Su would have to rely on ambush. While the bulk of the army would hide in waiting, General Su dispatched a small

contingent of troops to act as bait and draw the Turkic cavalry in. The Turks duly obliged and gave chase to what must have seemed to them easy prey, only to have the entire force of 20,000 Tang and Uyghur troops descend upon them without warning and from all sides. Now, given how little I've been able to find on the specifics of the Battle of Irtysh River, it seems to have been almost over before it begun. Taken completely by surprise, the majority of the Turkic forces were either killed outright or surrendered, while Shabulo Khan and a small contingent managed to break off and retreat. That flight wouldn't last long, though. Specifically, it would last just long enough for the defeated Khan to reach the city of Tashkent in modern

Uzbekistan. Rather than welcoming the warlord, the residents sensed that now was their chance to rid themselves of their Turkic overlords, and thus turned on the Khan and took him prisoner, and the next day handed him over to the pursuing Chinese force to be brought back to Chang'an to meet his fate. Of course, that fate was yet another exceedingly long 3,000-mile prisoner transfer away. And so, Shabulok Khan had plenty of time to ruminate on what had befell him on the banks of the Irtish River. He wrote in a letter intended for the Emperor Gaozong, quote, I am a defeated and ruined war captive. That's it. The former Emperor Taizong treated me generously, but I betrayed him. In my present defeat, heaven has vented its fury at me. In the past, I have heard that Han

law stipulates that executions of men be carried out in the city marketplace. When we arrive at the capital, I request to be brought to the tomb of Emperor Taizong to atone for my crimes. This is my sincere desire." Shabolu was absolutely right. Chinese law stipulated that he die for waging insurrection against his imperial overlord. But Gaozong was moved by this display of apparently sincere repentance, and thus waived the execution, as Shabolu requested, in front of Taizong's tomb. Nevertheless, the shame of first his defeat, and then the humiliation he had put himself through to spare his own life weighed heavily on the now former Khan of the Western Turks, and less than a year later that shame would drive him to take his own life.

He would be buried outside the Emperor's Park under a mound topped with a stelae, a military trophy of sorts, symbolizing both the Tang's great victory over the Western Turks and the loyalty of its Khagan, ultimately, to the imperial throne. With the fall of its Khan, the Western Turkic Khanate crumbled and was annexed into Tang China under the now greatly expanded Anshi Protectorate. The tribes of the Western Turks were split down the middle and placed under two new Khans, and, in the old Chinese spirit of divide and conquer, the two vassals Gaozong chose were selected precisely because they absolutely hated each other. As I'm sure we all know,

it's very hard to rebel against your imperial overlord when you're constantly at your neighbor's throat. Regardless, between 659 and 661, not only the entirety of Xinjiang, but also all of the vassal states of the Western Turks, including the regions of Russian Turkestan and the Oxus River Valley, were officially incorporated into the Tang Empire. That is to say, by 661, the borders of China had expanded to actually border Persian territory. This would be short-lived, however. And just four years later, in 665, the two supposedly vassalized Khans would manage to put aside their mutual antipathy long enough to realize that they were 3,000 miles away from Gaozong being able to boss them around anymore, and would once again throw off Tang imperial control to regain independence. Like I said earlier, you hammer one down, two more just

pop right back up. Ugh, barbarians, right? Now regardless of how much he might have liked to do something about that though, Emperor Gaozong was forced to pretty much allow the two little Khans that could to go on thumbing their nose at him from the middle of Asia, because he really, really could not spare the manpower to go deal with them right now. He had other and far more pressing concerns. By more pressing concerns, I mean, surprise, surprise, Korea. You remember them, right? That tiny little kingdom of Goguryeo that had chewed up and spit out the Sui dynasty, and then whom Taizong had beat himself to death smashing against. Well, it's time for Emperor Number Three to try his hand

at bridging that Korean-Majino line. Let's see how that pans out, shall we? But seriously though, I've been re-listening to Dan Carlin's series on World War I, the blueprint for Armageddon, on my commute, and it struck me how very similar the feel of the Western Front seems to the war with Goguryeo. Massive forts manned with thousands of troops, massive columns of soldiers and supplies delivered to the front lines through huge technological innovations, and above all, a seemingly static, largely unchanging battlefront that sees wave after wave after wave of soldiers die by the thousands to take and then retake again in battles that are as titanic as they are benumbing in their sheer repetitiveness.

The Tangogurio line of conflict is, at least in its broadest strokes, a lot like a medieval Western front. I realize that it's far from a perfect comparison, but it's one that stuck with me. Anyways, pulling away from that little plight of fancy, at least for now, let's recap the Korean situation. As you may recall,

hostilities had recommenced between Goguryeo and Tang when the old king had died and the new king was then overthrown and killed by a military dictator named Yong Gaosomun. Yuan had reversed the conciliatory policies and promises of subservience to Chang'an and begun to openly flout Tang domination beginning in 645. Personally offended at this, and also wishing to finish what his father had begun, Gaozong effectively inherited Taizong's obsession with bringing the offending Korean kingdom to heel, though he would, wisely,

pursue a rather different strategy than either of his forebears. In the year following Gaozong's accession, 655, Dictator Yun pushed the Korean problem right to the forefront of policy decisions when he commenced an invasion of the territories in southern Manchuria occupied by the Khitan people, who had pledged themselves as vassals to the Tang seven years prior. It was, of course, the obligation of the suzerain to respond to attacks against his protected states. But the push towards recommencement of hostilities

had actually been in the works behind the scenes for years at this point, and pushed by a seemingly unlikely source, the smallest and youngest of the Korean kingdoms, Silla, at the direction of its queen regnant, Jindok. Interestingly, the second queen regnant of the southern Korean kingdom, having succeeded her cousin, Queen Seondok, in 647, she made moves to strengthen her kingdom's ties to Tang China over the course of her seven-year reign, in order to secure the mighty Chinese state's eventual alliance and military support. Queen Jin Deok personally composed a poem to the Emperor of Tang, which was composed of a five-character verse titled Taepyeongsong, meaning the Song of Great Peace. She sent the poem, wrapped in a piece of silk brocade,

to Emperor Gaozong through her envoy, Kim Bop Min, who later became King Munmu. 400 years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the centre of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume, a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Listen to Season 1 to hear about England's first attempts at empire building, in Ireland, in North America and in the Caribbean, the first steps of the East India Company and

the political battles between King and Parliament. Listen to Season 2 to hear about the chaotic years of civil war, revolution, and regicide which rocked the Three Kingdoms and the Fledgling Empire. In Season 3, we see how Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell ruled the powerful Commonwealth and challenged the Dutch and the Spanish for the wealth and power of the Americas and Asia. Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax. The poem itself is about as big of a kiss-up as you might expect from someone seeking military aid. I won't read the whole thing as it's rather long, but just to give you an idea, it begins with, as translated by Pae Yong-yi

in the book Women in Korean History, quote, as noble heir to hundred kingdoms. He presides over heaven to send down sweet rains. He rules over all creation, giving luster to every object. His deep benevolence matches only the sun and the moon." It goes on and on like that. It is essentially a love letter to Gaozong's imperial ego. Because Queen Jindok knew well enough that though the way to a man's heart might be through his stomach, the way to his army lay in telling him how awesome he was at everything. And Gaozong just ate it up. In return, he named Jindok as his vassal and the princess of Giryim. It was a natural alliance and a win-win relationship, as both wanted to defeat the aggressively

expansionistic Goguryeo, Tang for prestige and honor, and Silla itself for sheer survival. It was now, after all, mortally threatened by the alliance between the North Korean power and the third of the Korean Three Kingdoms, Baekje, which was itself allied with the Yamato-wa Japanese people to effectively encircle the beleaguered Silla. So it was do or die. And in that situation, I think we'd all be writing love poetry to a potentially game-changing ally if we thought it would help. And help it did. Though Queen Jindok would die in 654, her groundwork would bear fruit for her successor, King Muyol. A military alliance was secured between Silla and Tang against the other two Korean states,

and mobilization plans drawn up. It was ultimately decided that the first target should be the weaker of the two, Baekje, which would both increase the likelihood of success rather than say bashing their collective heads against the brick wall that was Goguryeo again, and also then serve as a toehold and launch platform for subsequent raids into the larger enemy state. By 660, preparations had been finalized, and both allied armies were ready to mobilize. Once again, Emperor Gaozong would appoint his best and most decorated military commander to the job, he who had almost single-handedly defeated not just one, but now two Turkish Khanates, General Su Dingfang. At the head of an army consisting of as many as 100,000, General Su sailed across the Yellow Sea out of Shandong Peninsula, and made landfall

near Bekca's capital city of Sabi. As the Tang armies debarked from their transport on the banks of the Geum River and began laying siege to the capital from the shoreline, Silla launched its own coordinated strike from the other direction with an army of about 50,000, smashing through the eastern defenses and wrapping Sabi's city in a double envelopment. By mid-July, the city had fallen. Weschler writes in the Cambridge History of China, "...surrounded on all sides, the king of Beige fled from his capital, and his son surrendered the city and his country to the Tang. The Beige royal family were taken as hostages to Chang'an,

and Chinese officials were established throughout the conquered kingdom, backed up by 10,000 Chinese occupation troops. End quote. With Beige secured as a staging area, the second phase of the invasion could move forward. You may remember from the last episode that one of the defining characteristics of Gao Zong was his lifelong tendency to become extremely ill, quite possibly stroke-induced, which left him completely incapacitated for months and sometimes years on end. Well, this turned out to be one of those times, so though many of the histories chalk up Tang's role in the coming invasion of Goguryeo to its emperor, the final

say in the matter may have fallen to, that's right, Empress Wu Zhao and her calculating political acumen. Like the recent conquest of Beizhi, the attack was predicated on launching coordinated assaults from both directions against Pyongyang. General Su and the Tang army from Liaodong to the north, while a second Chinese strike force would invade from conquered Beizhi to the south and recreate the double siege that had proved so effective before. In all, many accounts tell that the Tang army committed to the attack numbered more than 350,000 soldiers, but as always, take such numbers with a sizable dosage of salt.

Sela would not be asked to commit any sizable number of its own troops to the conquest of Goguryeo, and was relegated to the role of providing logistical support and supplies to the Chinese armies stationed in Beizhou. Essentially, the waterboy of the big game. The northern theater of the invasion went basically according to plan. Led by General Su, the Tang army stormed across the Liao River and bypassed the always troublesome defensive fort networks that had slogged their efforts down time and again. In autumn of 661, the force arrived at the outer walls of Pyongyang and commenced its half of the siege, no doubt eagerly awaiting for the other half of their army to appear over the southern horizon and complete it. You know, any minute now.

What General Su and his army did not know, and could not have known, was that events had turned sour in conquered Baekje. Because though the royal family was now kept safely in Chang'an, they hadn't quite stamped out all vestiges of resistance. In particular, the Korean general, Gwisul Bok-sin, had gathered a band of allies to restore the Baekje king to his throne, and pivotally had called in the aid of Yamato-era Japan. Bok-Sin and his band hardly seemed to have been more than a nuisance to the Chinese occupation

force, but still proved to be enough of a bother that the southern half of the invasion force was forced to cancel its Northward March. Thus, unable to complete his noose around the Goguryeo capital, in spite of an abortive attempt to reinforce its position from the Silla royal army late that year, General Su's siege proved ineffective, and he was forced to call it off yet again in February of 662, and retreat back to the Chinese side of the Liao River. The following year would see one of the climactic moments of the Tang-Gorero War, when the Yamato Japanese war fleet at last arrived at the mouth of the Gim River

in an attempt to counter-invade and free Baekje from Chinese control. Known as the Battle of Baekgang, or in Japanese as the Battle of Hakusukinoe, it would be a tremendous sea- sea naval battle between China and Japan. The Japanese force numbered some 800 ships specifically designed for this mission, carrying more than 42,000 troopers, in addition to an unknown number of Baekje Restoration forces. Their goal was to relieve the Tang siege of the Restoration's wartime capital, Churyu, in an amphibious assault. On the 27th of August, the two sea powers clashed for the first time, with the Tang navy being thoroughly outnumbered,

with only 170 ships and between 7,000 and 13,000 men. But on the other hand, controlling the river mouth itself, and thereby negating that numerical advantage. By taking the battle out of the sea, and into the constraints of the river instead, the Tang navy could engage the Japanese ships one-to-one instead of simply being overwhelmed. In essence, what comes to mind is the Battle of Thermopylae, where the 300 Spartans were able to hold off a million Persians by positioning themselves within the narrow hot gates. Thus, the initial Japanese push to take the river was repulsed, but they would be back. The following day would see the battle recommence, this time with further reinforcements,

and alongside a coordinated ground assault launched by the Begja Restoration Forces. Once again though, the Tang navy's positioning would prove the decisive element in the encounter, with the Japanese ships trying to break through their lines at least three times, but with each effort again repulsed. By the end of the day, the tremendous efforts of the Japanese seamen had exhausted them, and they had begun to allow their fleet formations to begin to lose cohesion. The Tang navy, meanwhile, had been pushing back and holding off the strikes, yes, but had had the luxury of being able to simply sit and wait, fighting off the Japanese advance and then recover as their opponent was forced to retreat, reform, and advance

again. As such, the Tang military had been able to hold its true strength in reserve until just the right moment. And that moment, as General sensed, had finally come. With all the remaining energy that the Japanese sailors could not at this point hope to match, the Tang navy surged forward and broke through the left and right flanks of the exhausted Japanese fleet, trapping the ships and pinning them together to be struck down one after the other. An outcome, if not exactly tactic, mirroring the famous Roman defeat by Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae, only on water. According to the Nihon Shoki, or the Chronicle of Japan,

that day saw the loss of more than 400 warships and more than 10,000 of its finest soldiers. It was the worst military disaster in Japanese pre-modern history, and would sound both the final death knell for any hope of restoring Baizhe, as well as any and all Japanese idea of military adventures onto the Asian mainland for more than 900 years. The Yamato imperial court was so shaken by the scope of this defeat that over the course of the rest of the 7th century, they would order constructed a vast network of coastal defenses and early warning systems in the event of what they thought was an inevitable Tang Chinese or Silla Korean, or worse, both together, counter-invasion of the Japanese home islands.

For Tang China, the outcome was obviously beneficial. It now held uncontested control of the southern half of the Korean peninsula, which it had now officially annexed and rechristened as the Protectorate General to pacify the east. For Japan, though, the reasons were rather less clear. Why exactly had they gotten involved again? What had they possibly hoped to accomplish? Linguist J.M. Unger of the University of Hawaii has posited that based on the records of the Baekje language, they may have in fact been a remnant state of the people who had initially migrated from the Asian mainland to the Japanese

islands. This idea seems to be supported by the fact that following the disaster at the Gome River, Baekje refugees were given the option of loading onto ships bound for Japan, and those who did were all given titles commensurate with those they'd held in Korea once they'd arrived. There certainly seemed to have been an unusually close bond between the two states. For many of us looking at this event from our viewpoint in the 21st century, especially those of us in the West, it might seem surprising to have the Japanese military so thoroughly thrashed by their Chinese contemporaries. After all, many of us think of

the martial prowess of the samurai when we think of Japanese warfare, and of course the massive invasion and occupation of mainland East Asia before and during the Second World War. From that perspective, it might seem odd that at the end of the 7th century they'd be fearing that the opposite might come to pass. But that just goes to show the true distribution of military power at this time. The Chinese army has by this point not just years and years of combat experience for its individual soldiers, but an institutional history of large scale international warfare stretching back almost completely unbroken for more than 500 years at this point. The Chinese military may have burnt out its professional military caste during the Warring States period,

but the period of disunion had effectively turned the entire society into war-grizzled veterans. Moreover, Chinese armor, weapons, and construction techniques were just out and out better than their Japanese counterparts, who had doggedly been reforming their methods based on Chinese methodology for some time now, but still paled in comparison. In fact, the first high-quality replicas of Chinese swords would not even begin to be produced in Japan for another half century at the minimum. What the Japanese were operating with at this point were just shoddier, lower quality versions of the Chinese jian and tao blades. And it wasn't just weapons, but even more

importantly tactics and command as well. Organized infantry tactics, which had long been the norm in Chinese armies, were as yet undeveloped in Japan, and the fractious Daimyo feudal system ensured that there was no cohesive command structure, with every lord commanding his own private force more or less as he saw fit. Much as the knightly lords of Europe would come to find against the unified Mongolian hordes of the 13th century, individual skill would be no match for united purpose. Baekje was destroyed, and Japan sent back to its room to think about what it had done for a few centuries. But the prime target was still yet to fall.

Goguryeo yet stood fast, with its military dictator, Yeon Gyesomun, proudly flipping Emperor Gaozong the bird from his fortress Pyongyang. Still, with its foothold in the south meaning that Tang China was no longer forced to rely on the notoriously treacherous and overlong land route of invasion through Liaodong, things had begun to look considerably more grim for the North Korean state. And then, no doubt much to Gaozong's surprise and delight, in mid-666, Yeon Ge-seomun up and died at age 63.

And that's when it all went straight to hell for Goguryeo. In the sudden vacuum left by Yeon the Elder's tyrannical despotic rule, his three sons all just jumped at each other's throats trying to fill the slot. Yuan's designated heir eventually made the breathtakingly stupid decision that I'll defeat my brothers by asking China to take it back for me. And to this, China said, don't mind if I do.

Weschler describes what happened next. Quote, The Tang responded by mounting a massive land and sea campaign against Goguryeo, under the command of the aged Li Shiji. A large force from Silla joined the assault from the south. In the ninth month of 668, as the climax to a series of Tang victories, Li Shiji took the Goguryeo capital, Pyongyang, after a month-long siege, and took back to China with him some 200,000 prisoners, including the Goguryeo king, who was ceremonially presented

at the tomb of Taizong. A Chinese protectorate with a garrison of 20,000 troops was set up to govern the conquered kingdom. And that, as they say, was that. Goguryeo, which had stood proud and independent for some six centuries, was at last no more, now instead rolled into the Tang's protectorate general to pacify the east. However, much like its huge territorial gains in the far west, Korea would not remain Chinese for long. Continued resistance to Chinese occupation would see a brief restoration of the royal household in 670, only to be snuffed out again four years later. Internal resistance, however, remains steadfast. Moreover, now with its two local enemies destroyed, the Kingdom of Silla was beginning to say, okay, yeah, thanks for the assist, China, but you can go home now.

To which China, of course, said, you don't seem to understand. I've already unpacked. And so, to this, Silla cut off the power supply. The material aid the Tang occupation forces had been receiving and relying upon from Silla this whole time to supply their efforts would quickly dry up, leaving the imperial court at Chang'an strained to make up for the loss. Relations between the erstwhile allies continued to chill as Silla overran the former Beigje territories in 676, prompting the Tang government to move its protectorate capital from Pyongyang back across the Liao River, thus essentially ceding the entire peninsula to Silla's control.

The Goguryeo-Tang War was over, and just in time for the Silla-Tang War to begin. But that, as well as Tang's dealings with the dangerously expansionistic Tibetan kingdom of the 660s will have to wait. Normally I would say until next time, but in this case, not. That's because the Chinese New Year is upon us once again, and the year of the monkey is fast approaching. So, given that we are more or less still in the period that the event actually took place, next time we're going to take a look at the most famous monkey in all of Chinese folk legend, Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. Or, as you Dragon Ball Z fans might better know him, Son Goku. What's that? He's not really history in just a 14th century fantasy novel? Fine. Well, then after my foray into flying staff-wielding simians,

farm-tool-wielding pig people, and dragon horses, we'll then discuss the real journey of the monk Xuanzang and his incredible trek across the wilds of India to bring back those holy Buddhist sutras. Thank you for listening.

Please join us at The History of China on our Facebook page Thank you for listening. dot wordpress dot com. And while there, please consider helping us keep the show going by becoming a donator through PayPal or a recurring patron of the show through our Patreon link, both of which can be found on the website. Thank you so very, very much. The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history. When a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves. And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans. I'm Tracy. And I'm Rich. And we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history. Look for The Civil War and Reconstruction wherever you find your podcasts.