[Gubook Janggoon]

WangKon936, on Aug 7 2006, 08:14 AM, said:

Lifezard,

By the 7th century, Koguryo had a sedentary population and a centralized, Chinese style / Confucian civilization, with Buddhism as the state religion and Daoism as the state philosophy. It had an elaborate central bureaucracy, land registries and an agrarian based economy.

What Gubook means here is that Koguryo had a nomadic heritage in the past, during its formulative years in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. By the time they fight Sui and Tang, they are in no ways nomadic or semi-nomadic but a full centralized, Chinese style, sedentary civilization.

Exactly. DearCoolZ was questioning any nomadic heritage that Goguryeo might have had, when it is quite obvious that the entity had nomadic origins. Even after the state was well centralized and settled, the king would order annual (or so) hunting events for brave individuals to distinguish themselves in a fitting look back at the state's heritage.

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

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The discussion you cited reflects a recent poliically-oriented discussions. However, all the so-called "Chinese" historical "chronicals" all classify Koreans (Koguryo, Silla, Baekje, Buyo, Old Chosun etc) as Eastern Barbarians, including some ethnic Koreans who lived in the inside of Chinese continent, which was not Chinese territory at that time.

Even the most ancient book "Shang Shu" mentioned that "Gao Yi (Tall Aliens) living outside of Jie Shi Shan (Jie Shi Mountain)" (designating the North-Eastern provinces and Korean peninsula) came to visit king Yu of the central kingdom.

This tradition of designating Koreans lasted for several thousand years (say for almost 3400).

Ok, it seems few people here actually read the PRC scholarship on Koguryo and their reasons on why it belongs to China, I've just got the newest "Gu Dai Zhong Guo Gao Gu Li li shi" by Ma Da Zheng, Li Da Long, Geng Tie Hua and Quan da Xiu. They made a good point on why Koguryo is not the same as the later Koryo, but really fell into the double standard category when regarding the Chinese sources.
Here are the evidence that Chinese scholars use to prove Koguryo is part of Chinese history:

1) Koguryo spawned out of one of the four Han commanderies named after the Koguryo district. It has been an inner vassal of Han-Jin and only became really independent after the collapse of Jin. Wang Mang not only could call upon the Koguryo army whenever it desires against the xiongnu, it even executed its king when the Koguryo army fled back to the country. Afterwards it reduced the status of the king of Koguryo to that of a mere Marquis and renamed Gao Gu Li to Xia(under opposed to high) Gu Li. ( Han Shu, biography of Wang Mang) So at least all the way til the Jin, which is more than half of Koguryo's life span, it was nothing more than a feudal kingdom of the Han dynasty no different from kingdoms such as Chang Sha, Huai Nan, Qi, Yan, and the like. And afterwards Chinese rulers always called Koguryo as part of the Nine region(or China) and attempt to take Koguryo as part of their goal in "unification" of the Chinese world.

2) This is taken from the Ce Fu Yuan Gui volume 117 (Di Wang Bu , Qing Zhen 2) (it is only one of the many references)
From Emperor Tai Zong "Liao Dong was part of the Middle Kingdom, since the Wei to the Zhou, it has been outside of the border. The Sui sent troops to it four times and returned with loss, lots of Chinese innocents were killed. Today they(koguryo) killed its leader, arrogant as ever, I thought about it for a long night and decided to invade it. I will revenge for the Chinese people that died, and oust the dicator for the people of Koguryo. At the present day, the nine regions(another name for China) is pacified, except for this place(refering to Koguryo), using the extra strength from the warriors, and pacify the bandit who killed his lord."


3) The History of the Three Kingdoms of Koryo that claim lineage to to Koguryo is only an attempt for Koryo to increase its prestige, it has twisted the history of Koguryo before(as can be seen by its distortion of the Wang Mang's execution of the King of Koguryo, which it merely copied word by word from the Hou Han Shu and changed a few passages for propaganda purpose).

This post has been edited by warhead: 14 August 2006 - 06:41 AM

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

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I've been doing some searching in this regards and I'd be very curious as to who actually did a better summary of these wars with Koguryo then Graff (in the English language). One possible candidate is Dr. Jamison and his PhD dissertation entited "The Korean Wars of Unification" which was done at UC Berkeley. I haven't seen it, but if it's like other PhD dissertations, then it would be at least 200 pages. Graff's biblography lists mostly primary Chinese sources and Dr. Jamison's disseration.

From my research, there is not alot of publically available literature in North America regarding Tang, Sui and Koguryo interactions. But if you can add anything to biblographic corpus, please do so.

You also have to remember, that at this point, Koguryo's wars against Sui and Tang are not well studied by scholars outside of Korea. So if no one is using Graff as a source here it's probably because most of the scholars doing work in this subject are Koreans and Chinese and they would just do what Graff did, use the primary sources. If there were more North American scholars doing work here, then you'd expect Graff's account to be more widely used.

Lets see, how about Fitzgerald's Empress Wu that dedicated a whole chapter to the Korean war? Graff's description of that war is not only simplistic, its incomplete.


"" The descendants of the Kitans are the Mongols.""


The Khitans are not the ancestors of the Mongols, the ancestor of the Mongols are the Shi Wei. The name Mongol was originally one of the tribe of the Shi Wei north of the Khitan, both groups descended from the Dong Hu.

[Yun]

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"Liao Dong was part of the Middle Kingdom, since the Wei to the Zhou, it has been outside of the border. The Sui sent troops to it four times and returned with loss, lots of Chinese innocents were killed. Today they(koguryo) killed its leader, arrogant as ever, I thought about it for a long night and decided to invade it. I will revenge for the Chinese people that died, and oust the dicator for the people of Koguryo. At the present day, the nine regions(another name for China) is pacified, except for this place(refering to Koguryo), using the extra strength from the warriors, and pacify the bandit who killed his lord."

Welcome back to CHF, Warhead! It's been some time since we last saw you.

It seems to me that Koguryo was essentially independent from the Eastern Han onwards, and was regarded as a vassal state rather than one of the prefectures under the central government. After Koguryo conquered the Lelang and Daifang prefectures on the Korean peninsula during the collapse of the Western Jin dynasty (c. 313), these areas were also given up by subsequent dynasties because they were too remote.

The problem, as highlighted by Tang Taizong's comments, is that Koguryo also conquered the Liaodong peninsula in the late 390s, during the war between the Northern Wei and Later Yan states. Liaodong was never retaken by the Northern Wei, Eastern Wei, Northern Zhou and Sui, but it was still regarded as an integral part of the empire: it was part of Youzhou in the Han and Wei, and constituted the province of Pingzhou from the Western Jin onwards.

If Koguryo did not occupy the Liaodong peninsula, I think the Sui and Tang would have had far less ideological justification for invading Koguryo.

[Yun]

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Koguryo and all other NE ancient clans were absolutely NOT Hua-Xia origin,their closest genetics link to China proper was the Dong-Yi of Shandong peninsula and lower coastal region once labeled as Dong-Yi domain in ancient times.

There is actually no ancestral, 'genetic' or ethnic link between the ancient Shang-Zhou Dongyi of Shandong and the northeastern peoples labelled as Dongyi from the Wei and Jin dynasties onwards. The same label was reapplied to a totally different group of peoples.

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

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Welcome back to CHF, Warhead! It's been some time since we last saw you.

Thanks, I've been in China for 2 and a half month to teach English, and CHF seem to be banned there so I cannot access it.

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

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seems to me that Koguryo was essentially independent from the Eastern Han onwards, and was regarded as a vassal state rather than one of the prefectures under the central government. After Koguryo conquered the Lelang and Daifang prefectures on the Korean peninsula during the collapse of the Western Jin dynasty (c. 313), these areas were also given up by subsequent dynasties because they were too remote.

The problem, as highlighted by Tang Taizong's comments, is that Koguryo also conquered the Liaodong peninsula in the late 390s, during the war between the Northern Wei and Later Yan states. Liaodong was never retaken by the Northern Wei, Eastern Wei, Northern Zhou and Sui, but it was still regarded as an integral part of the empire: it was part of Youzhou in the Han and Wei, and constituted the province of Pingzhou from the Western Jin onwards.

If Koguryo did not occupy the Liaodong peninsula, I think the Sui and Tang would have had far less ideological justification for invading Koguryo.

It was not directly governed but in 111 A.D. The king of Gao Gu Li "presented tribute, and ask to be supervised by the Xuan Tu Jun." only to rebel again in 118 A.D. Again according to San Guo Zhi, in the second year of Jian Ning of emperor Ling, Xuan Tu Tai Shou attacked Gao Gu Li, the king Bo Gu submitted, supervised by Liao Dong commandery.
During the Cao Wei, in 244, fought at Liang Kou, routed the Koguryo army, captured its capital" from then on Koguryo became an inner vassal until the chaos at the end of the Jin.
As for the Liao Dong, note that Tang Tai Zong considered Koguryo itself as part of the "nine region" lost since the end of Jin.

[Yun]

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The king of Gao Gu Li "presented tribute, and ask to be supervised by the Xuan Tu Jun." only to rebel again in 118 A.D. Again according to San Guo Zhi, in the second year of Jian Ning of emperor Ling, Xuan Tu Tai Shou attacked Gao Gu Li, the king Bo Gu submitted, supervised by Liao Dong commandery.
During the Cao Wei, in 244, fought at Liang Kou, routed the Koguryo army, captured its capital" from then on Koguryo became an inner vassal until the chaos at the end of the Jin.

So I think the best that can be said is that Koguryo was an unreliable vassal state that frequently raided the Han border and had to be attacked with Han armies based at the Xuantu prefecture. The first such raid was apparently in AD 105. In 246 (not 244), the Wei expedition against Koguryo was also launched because Koguryo constantly raided the Wei border after the Wei conquered Liaodong (including Xuantu) from Gongsun Yuan in 238. In fact, from the 190s to 238, Koguryo had no real contact with the Han and Wei courts because it was cut off by the Gongsun warlords in Liaodong.

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As for the Liao Dong, note that Tang Tai Zong considered Koguryo itself as part of the "nine region" lost since the end of Jin.

How do we know that "this place" in Taizong's quote refers to Koguryo as a whole? After all, earlier in his quote he was only talking about Liaodong once being "part of the Middle Kingdom" (Zhongguo). He did not say Koguryo itself was part of Zhongguo even before it conquered Liaodong.

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

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In 246 (not 244), the Wei expedition against Koguryo was also launched because Koguryo constantly raided the Wei border after the Wei conquered Liaodong (including Xuantu) from Gongsun Yuan in 238. In fact, from the 190s to 238, Koguryo had no real contact with the Han and Wei courts because it was cut off by the Gongsun warlords in Liaodong.

The campaign of 244 and 246 are two different ones. The later was against other tribes north of Koguryo.


"How do we know that "this place" in Taizong's quote refers to Koguryo as a whole? After all, earlier in his quote he was only talking about Liaodong once being "part of the Middle Kingdom" (Zhongguo). He did not say Koguryo itself was part of Zhongguo even before it conquered Liaodong."

You got a point, it seem the authors of that book is doing selective reading.

[MING-LOYALIST]

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How do we know that "this place" in Taizong's quote refers to Koguryo as a whole? After all, earlier in his quote he was only talking about Liaodong once being "part of the Middle Kingdom" (Zhongguo). He did not say Koguryo itself was part of Zhongguo even before it conquered Liaodong.

Why just Liaodong? remember Han dynasty controlled pyongyang, Tang dynasty being its succesor, its plausible that it would try to restore all the territories that was once held by Han.

similarly When ROC was founded when it claims to restore all territories of China it meant all territories held by Qing dynasty at its height not just China proper.

This post has been edited by MING-LOYALIST: 14 August 2006 - 09:55 AM

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

Thats not the case, the argument the PRC made is that Tang viewed it directly as part of the nine regions or all under heaven, the world that matters.(which needs to be taken to consider the present regime legitimate) There are no concept of territorial legitimacy back then, so the case is completely different from ROC(and PRC) and Qing.

[Yun]

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Why just Liaodong? remember Han dynasty controlled pyongyang, Tang dynasty being its succesor, its plausible that it would try to restore all the territories that was once held by Han.

True - after all, Daifang and Lelang were also prefectures under Pingzhou province. But my guess is that the difference lay in the fact that Liaodong was already held by the State of Yan and the Qin dynasty, whereas the area of Pyongyang was a foreign place (Wiman Choson) until Han Wudi conquered it, and continued to be regarded as a remote colony.

[ih8eurocentrix]

How accurate is the Wikipedie version of events

http://en.wikipedia....guryeo-Sui_Wars

[hua]

Sui Yangdi should have captured and immediately execute Ulchi Mundok when he came to capitulate. That was one big blunder in history.