The Sui Dynasty was a dynasty that ended the division of the Southern and Northern Dynasties in China, and in the process of the Sui Dynasty's destruction of the Southern Dynasty, Yang Guang, who later became the Sui Emperor, can be said to be the central figure, and he also showed strong political and military ability in the process of destroying the Southern Chen Dynasty. However, after the destruction of the Chen Dynasty and the ascension to the throne, Yang Guangyi did not concentrate on internal affairs, and yang Guangyi did not concentrate on dealing with the more powerful northern regime at that time, the Turks, but relatively competed with Goguryeo, whose sphere of influence was concentrated in the northeast corner, and sent heavy troops to recruit it three times in a row. So what was the Sui Emperor doing this for? What exactly did Goguryeo do at that time?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Goguryeo was unified with the world</h1>
In fact, in the view of the Peach Blossom Stone Miscellaneous, to explore the root causes of the Sui Emperor's several three-time conquest of Goguryeo, we should first start with the ancient Chinese view of the world, because Yang Guang wanted to fight goguryeo, and one of the most fundamental reasons may be the same as the reason for his destruction of the Southern Chen Dynasty, that is, to unify the world. And to say this, we must talk about some modern people's misunderstanding of Goguryeo.
Goguryeo was once known as Goryeo for a long time in Han Chinese historical records, and in the later period of the existence of this regime, its capital was also moved from today's China to the Korean Peninsula, and at the same time on the Korean Peninsula, there was a dynasty called Goryeo later, coupled with the influence of some Korean film and television dramas in recent years, so in the cognition of some Chinese people, Goguryeo may also be regarded as a regime on the Korean Peninsula.
Location of Xuanju County and Goguryeo County
But in fact, this kind of cognition is completely inconsistent with historical facts. First, goguryeo did not originate in the Korean Peninsula, but in Huanren County, Liaoning Province, China. Moreover, the Goguryeo regime did not establish power in the unowned area at that time, and its original territory was actually the jurisdiction of Goguryeo County, Xuanju County, Western Han Dynasty. The Xuanju Commandery was established by the Western Han Dynasty in 108 BC, more than 70 years before the establishment of the Goguryeo regime, so it can be said that the Goguryeo regime was first born in the territory directly administered by the Western Han Dynasty through the county system.
Moreover, after the establishment of the Goguryeo regime, it was not an independent country, but took the initiative to accept the canonization of the Western Han Dynasty, and its human and financial resources were also subject to the dispatch of the Central Plains regime. During the Western Han Dynasty, Goguryeo often accepted the "Imperial Dress" given by Xuanju County. After Wang Mang established a new dynasty, he also recruited Goguryeo soldiers to attack the Xiongnu. Although by the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty, because of the decline in the control of the Eastern Han regime over the northeastern frontier, Goguryeo gradually disobeyed its dispatches and repeatedly attacked the counties established by the central Han Dynasty, but at least nominally, it would still accept the canonization of the Central Plains regime. For example, the Jin Dynasty, Northern Wei, Liu Song and other regimes once canonized Goguryeo. Therefore, from the perspective of the Central Plains, Goguryeo was actually to a large extent also a divided regime after the fall of the Han Dynasty and the division of China, and the difference between the regimes of some northern nomadic ethnic groups that formed divisions during the Sixteen Kingdoms period was not particularly large, on the contrary, it was not the same thing as the regime on the Korean Peninsula later.
The approximate area of Goguryeo during the Sixteen Kingdoms period
After a period of great division from the warlord division at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Sixteen Kingdoms of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and even the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it was the general trend for China to re-unify during the Sui Dynasty. At that time, the Sui Dynasty wanted to unify the world, and restoring the territory of the Han Dynasty in its heyday was also a very natural goal, so the Goguryeo jurisdiction within the territory of the Han Dynasty naturally became one of the goals in the unification process of the Sui Dynasty.
Moreover, this understanding is by no means the view of the Sui Emperor alone. Although the conquest of Goguryeo was one of the important triggers for the demise of the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, which replaced the Sui Dynasty, while abolishing many of the harsh policies of the Sui Emperor, firmly inherited the national policy of conquest of Goguryeo. And When Tang Taizong explained to his courtiers why he wanted to conquer Goguryeo, he once said:
The existence of the old China in Liaodong has been left out of the Wei Zhou Dynasty... Now the Nine YingDa Ding, the only one corner, with the spare strength of the soldiers, to calm the demon's ears.
That is to say, in the view of Li Shimin of Tang Taizong, the Liaodong region controlled by Goguryeo itself was an inherent territory of China, but it was separated from the jurisdiction of Central Plains politics during the chaotic period of China from the Three Kingdoms (Wei) to the Southern and Northern Dynasties (Northern Zhou), and at that time China was close to reunification, but the area of Goguryeo was still divided, so the generals had to continue to exert their efforts to pacify Goguryeo, and the unification of the world was completely completed. Therefore, it can also be seen from this passage that at that time, the Sui and Tang dynasties actually regarded the Liaodong region controlled by Goguryeo as the inherent territory of the Central Plains Dynasty, and without the pacification of Goguryeo, the unification of the world was not yet completed, so the pacification of Goguryeo was also what the monarch who aspired to unify the world had to do.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > a real threat from Goguryeo to the Central Plains Dynasty</h1>
So in this context, it is not surprising that the Sui Dynasty would go to Goguryeo. However, at that time, the Sui Emperor spent so much effort to fight Goguryeo, in fact, it was also related to some specific practices of Goguryeo that caused the Sui Dynasty to be extremely disgusted. A significant difference between Goguryeo and the later regimes on the Korean Peninsula was that it always played a certain role in the evolution of the situation in the Central Plains, and its intention to muddy the waters and profit from the situation in the Central Plains was also more obvious.
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Northern Dynasty was right in front of Goguryeo and had a real huge pressure on Goguryeo, so Goguryeo was forced to maintain tributary relations with various dynasties of the Northern Dynasty, but goguryeo's relationship with the Northern Dynasty was always in a state of relative entanglement.
The situation in the Northern Wei, Liu Song, Goguryeo and Rouran
First of all, in the process of Northern Wei's unification of northern China, Goguryeo had ambiguous relations with Northern Wei's enemy Northern Yan, and even sent an army on the eve of the fall of Northern Yan to take refuge in his territory, Feng Hong, the last monarch of Northern Yan. Although Feng Hong was later killed in a fallout with the Goguryeo monarch Goguryeo, and Goguryeo soon sent envoys to pay tribute to Northern Wei, after four tributes, the connection between Goguryeo and the Northern Dynasty was broken for more than 20 years. During this period, Goguryeo repeatedly sent envoys to communicate with the Southern Dynasty Liu Song, and even directly supported 800 warhorses during the Northern Wei Expedition of Liu Song Emperor Wen emperor Liu Yilong, which was also of great significance to the Southern Dynasty, which was relatively short of warhorses.
However, the Northern Expedition carried out by Liu Song was finally all defeated, at this time Goguryeo saw that the attempt to use Liu Song to contain Northern Wei could not be achieved, and began to pay tribute to Northern Wei from 462 AD, and the tribute enthusiasm was extremely high, and for many years there were two or even three tributes within one year, which can be said to run through the entire Southern and Northern Dynasties period. The Baekje regime in southern Korea at the time complained of Goguryeo in a statement to the Northern Wei Dynasty:
Or Nantong Liu Clan, or NATO creep, universal lip and teeth, MouLing Wang Strategy.
That is to say, Goguryeo contacted the Southern Dynasty on the one hand, and on the other hand, contacted the northern nomadic tribe Ruoran (creep), and formed an offensive and defensive alliance with these two sides to contain the Northern Dynasty, while itself set out to dominate Liaodong and the Korean Peninsula. And this strategy, which can be said to be a long-term national policy implemented by Goguryeo, was still continued in the Sui Dynasty. In the early days of the Sui Dynasty, Goguryeo still paid tribute to the Northern Dynasty regime once a year. However, after 585 AD, perhaps Goguryeo felt that the Sui Dynasty had the ambition and strength to reunify the Central Plains, so it began to repeat the same trick and adopted the practice of using the Southern Dynasty to contain the Sui Dynasty.
Goguryeo was roughly controlled during its heyday
From that year onwards, Goguryeo no longer sent envoys to the Sui Dynasty, but instead submitted to the Southern Chen Dynasty. Many modern scholars even believe that Goguryeo had already formulated a national policy of "jointly resisting The Sui Dynasty" at that time. In the process, Goguryeo also stepped up its expansion in both the north and the south. On the one hand, they launched several offensives against Silla and Baekje in the south of the Korean Peninsula, and in 427 AD moved the capital from the domestic city in present-day Jilin Province to the city of Pyongyang on the Korean Peninsula, strengthening their management of the Korean Peninsula. On the other hand, they forced the Liaodong Jin tribes to submit to them, and began to establish contact with the Turks who had destroyed Rouran, trying to prevent the Sui Dynasty from unifying the world through the Chen-Goguryeo-Turkic tripartite alliance. Therefore, Goguryeo at that time was an offensive regime that constantly stirred up the politics of the Central Plains, and at the same time sought to dominate Liaodong and compete with the Central Plains Dynasty, which was essentially different from the existence of the later regimes on the Korean Peninsula.
Sui annihilation of Chen situation map
However, the Sui Dynasty made the Northern Expedition to the Turks in 584 AD, making it a vassal, and destroying Southern Chen in 589 AD, completely shattering Goguryeo's wishful thinking. These two changes made Goguryeo feel an unprecedented crisis, which led to its rapid beginning of "curing the valley of the army and defending the strategy". That is, it began to expand the army in large quantities and hoard grain and grass to prepare for war with the Sui Dynasty. In 598, Gao Yuan, the king of Goguryeo (Infant Yang), even took the initiative to provoke the Sui Dynasty and directly joined forces with the Jing forces to raid Yingzhou in western Liaoning, causing the Sui Emperor to be furious and triggering the Sui Dynasty's first crusade against Goguryeo. As a result, the Sui navy suffered a large number of sinking ships due to high winds, so the battle with the Goguryeo army ended in defeat. At that time, The King of Goguryeo, Gao Yuan, also did not want the war with the Sui Dynasty to continue, so he took the initiative to send the steps, calling himself "Liaodong Dung Tu chen yuan", and the Sui Emperor saw that the war was unfavorable, so he withdrew his army.
The Sui Dynasty roughly covers the territory
However, after this, Goguryeo began to intensify its contacts with the Turks, trying to continue to contain the Sui Dynasty through alliances with the Turks. In 607, the Sui Emperor Yang Guang came to today's Tuoketo, Inner Mongolia, to inspect the camp of the Turkic Qimin Khan, who was then a vassal of the Sui Dynasty. As a result, here I unexpectedly met a Goguryeo envoy who was in contact with the Turks here. This incident immediately aroused Yang Guang's high vigilance, and he immediately issued a stern warning to the Goguryeo envoys, saying that "Gou or not, the marshal Qimin will go to the other land", that is, if Goguryeo continues to resist the Sui Dynasty, he will take the Turks (Qimin Khan) with him to conquer Goguryeo.
After this, in order to test whether Goguryeo was still willing to submit, Yang Guang once adopted the advice of the minister Pei Zhi and asked Goguryeo to send envoys to pay tribute, but at that time, goguryeo king Gao Yuan refused to send any more tributes, which made Yang Guang convinced that Goguryeo was already determined to make enemies of Sui, and if he sat idly by at this time, once he truly formed an alliance with the Turks and acted in concert, it would inevitably pose a great threat to the Sui Dynasty. So he finally made up his mind to go on Goguryeo again.
The Sui Dynasty crusaded against the Goguryeo marching route
Although the absolute military strength of the Sui Dynasty was far stronger than that of Goguryeo, at that time, the Liaodong region was far from the core area of the Sui Dynasty, and it was difficult to properly solve logistical problems such as grain and grass, coupled with the fact that Goguryeo had been operating in the Liaodong region for hundreds of years, which led to the Sui Dynasty's conquest of Goguryeo was costly, triggering an economic crisis, and eventually evolving into a popular uprising, making the Sui Dynasty quickly perish. However, after the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, the threat of Goguryeo to the Central Plains Dynasty remained unchanged, and the destruction of Goguryeo was also a matter of real unification under the heavens, so the tang dynasties and Tang Gaozong continued to use troops against it, and finally destroyed it in 668 AD. (Image from the Internet, infringement notice deleted)