Yeon Gaesomun

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Yeon Gaesomun (603? - 666?), was the military dictator in the waning days of Goguryeo, the most powerful among the Three Kingdoms of ancient Korea. He was the central figure in that most formative epoch of ancient Korean history. Historians generally credit Yeon's brilliant military leadership as having prevented the asborption of the entire Korean peninsula by Tang China. As a result, he is generally considered Korea's greatest soldier-statesman of antiquity. Due partly to the ultimate fate of Goguryeo immediately upon his death, however, Yeon has also been the subject of intense controversy among Korean historians throughout the ages.

According to his supporters, Yeon is the epitome of the martial spirit of the Korean people. In particular, he is remembered for a series of astonishing military victories over the invading Tang Chinese forces under the dynasty most energetic monarch, Taizong, and his son Gaozu. In fact, the failure against Yeon's Goguryeo was the only military defeat that Taizong, whom many consider the greatest Chinese monarch, ever suffered on the battlefield. Simply put, while Yeon lived, Goguryeo proved impregnable against the mightiest power on earth at the time. This achievement, among others, has inspired the noted Korean nationalist intellectual Shin Chae-ho to proclaim that Yeon was the greatest hero in Korean history.

Yet, Yeon's detractors--in particular his later Confucian critics--have also upbraided Yeon for the coup and the regicide that brought him to power. In fact, his execution of King Yeongnyu and the subsequent installation of King Bojang in 642 served as a pretext for Tang Taizong and his son's invasions against Goguryeo. While unsuccessful while Yeon was alive, the Tang finally vanquished Goguryeo once Yeon died. Moreover, Yeon has often been portrayed as arrogant and brutal. According to lore, Yeon would have men prostrate themselves so that he might use their backs to mount or dismount his horse.

Contents

1 Background
2 Overthrow of the throne
3 Wars with China
4 Death
5 Television depiction
6 See also

Background

Our knowledge of Yeon Gaesomun comes largely from the Samguk Sagi's accounts of Kings Yeongnyu and Bojang (Goguryeo vols. 8-10) and its biography of Yeon Gaesomun (vol. 49), surviving tomb engravings belonging to his sons Yeon Namsaeng and Yeon Namgeon, and the biographies of those same sons that appear in the Xin Tangshu (New History of Tang).

Chinese sources give Yeon Gaesomun's surname as Cheon 泉 (Chinese Quan). This divergence is likely a result of Yeon (Chinese, Yuan) being the given name of Tang Gaozu (Li Yuan 李淵), founder and first emperor of Tang, and thus taboo to apply to another by Chinese tradition (see naming taboo). He is also sometimes referred to as Gaegeum (개금/蓋金).

Very little is known of Yeon's early days, and he appears on the historical scene when he became the commander of the western district (西部), where he oversaw the building of the Cheolli Jangseong, a defensive wall against China.

Overthrow of the throne

Yeon Gaesomun's 642 coup d'etat came as the culimnation of a lengthy power struggle within the Goguryeo aristocracy between those who favored a policy of appeasement toward the Tang China and those hard-liners who advocated military confrontation. Yeon belonged to the camp of hard-liners, and this stance set him on a collision course with King Yeongnyu, who favored appeasement.

King Yeongnu ultimately plotted to murder Yeon, but Yeon struck first. In 642, Yeon arranged a lavish banquet in which the most powerful nobles were invited. When the invitees were all present, Yeon's soldiers ambushed those nobles aligned with King Yeongu and his appeasement policy. Yeon then proceeded to the palace to murder the king as well.

After placing Bojang (r. 642-668), nephew of Yeongnyu, on the Goguryeo throne, Yeon appointed himself Mangniji (莫離支, an obscure office of Tang times but carrying with it the notion of commander of military affairs), and in this role went on to assume de facto control over Goguryeo affairs of state until his death around 666.

His role in the murder of the Goguryeo king was taken as the primary pretext for the failed Tang invasion of 645.

Wars with China

He supported Taoism at the expense of Buddhism, and in 643 sent emissaries to the Tang court to request Taoist sages, eight of whom were brought to Goguryeo. This gesture is considered by some historians as an effort to pacify the Tang and buy time to prepare for a Tang invasion that Yeon thought inevitable, given Taizong's expansionist ambitions.

True to Yeon's belief, good relations with Tang did not last long, as Tang grew angry with Goguryeo interference in their diplomatic contacts with the southern Korean kingdom of Silla. This led to a massive invasion in the winter of 645, personally led by Taizong. After taking several border cities, Taizong's enormous army was stymied at the Ansi Fortress by the heroic resistance of Yang Man-chun. 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 unforgiving Mancurian winter--was forced to turn back.

After Taizong's initial failure, the conquest of Goguryeo became an obsession with Taizong and his son Gaozong. They 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 and all his 13 sons died in battle.

Death

The date of Yeon Gaesomun's death varies by source. The most widely quoted date is that given by the Samguk Sagi, which records it as 666. However, the Japanese history Nihonshoki gives the year of his death as the twenty-third year of the reign of King Bojang (664). The most likely date seems to be that recorded on the tomb stele of Namsaeng, Yeon Gaesomun's eldest son: the twenty-fourth year of the reign of Bojang (665).

He apparently died of natural causes. After his death, the country was weakened by a succession struggle between his several sons, and in 668 fell relativley swiftly to the Silla-Tang armies.

Yeon Gaesomun had at least three sons, (eldest to youngest) Yeon Namsaeng, Yeon Namgeon, and Yeon Namsan After their father's death the sons engaged in a violent political struggle for power, with the youngest son the apparent victor. Yeon Namsaeng ultimately sought refuge and aid in Tang and aided that power in its campaign of 668 that sealed Goguryeo's fall. Some sources say the later would-be king of Goguryeo, Anseung, was the son of Yeon Jeongto, another son of Yeon Gaesomun.

Television depiction