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  • Qiannian luanju, zhengba dongbei Ya: cong Sui Yangdi san zheng Gaojuli dao Tang fengman tianxia (Millennium of chaos, struggle for hegemony in Northeast Asia: from the three Sui campaigns against Koguryŏ to the pervading influence of Tang China) by Fang Yu
  • Suleski Ronald, Director
Qiannian luanju, zhengba dongbei Ya: cong Sui Yangdi san zheng Gaojuli dao Tang fengman tianxia (Millennium of chaos, struggle for hegemony in Northeast Asia: from the three Sui campaigns against Koguryŏ to the pervading influence of Tang China) by Fang Yu. Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 2012. 297 pp.

In the sixth century, China’s Emperor Yang of Sui (r. 606–618) was constantly beset by tribal peoples such as the Khitan and Turks (Tujue) who threatened his northern and western frontiers. When he looked to the east he saw Koguryŏ, a kingdom established by the Korean people. Koguryŏ was powerful, entrenched, and sure of itself and it also posed a potential threat to the Sui. Between 612 and 615 Emperor Yang launched three major attacks against the neighboring state of Koguryŏ. Many of the battles took place in the area of Liaodong in modern Liaoyang, Liaoning province. None of the campaigns were successful. Sui armies could not overcome the Korean fortresses and Koguryŏ held.

The Emperor became obsessed with the idea of subjugating the Koreans and he ignored the opinions of many officials and generals who advised ending the attacks. Thousands of peasants were being conscripted for military service, so agricultural production declined at home while they were off to war. Fang Yu, author of Millennium of Chaos, writes that the repeated military adventures against Koguryŏ were one of the major causes of the Sui collapse in 618.

The following Chinese Tang Dynasty also got involved with the Korean states. By taking advantage of the military contests between power holders on the Korean peninsula, Tang was able to crush Koguryŏ in 668. By means of shifting alliances with the other Korean kingdoms of Paekche, and Silla, Tang in [End Page 397] effected neutralized Korea as a potential military threat. The first half of this book concentrates on the Sui and Tang military campaigns, the routes of march, and the numbers of troops involved. Fang recounts some of the exploits of the famous Chinese general Xue Rengui 薛仁貴 (614–683), who threw on white armor to draw attention to himself.

But in the second half of the book, Fang steps back to consider the wider implications of the centuries of Chinese-Korean and inter-Korean conflict during the Three Kingdoms and Unified Silla periods. One of the results of warfare was a diaspora of Koreans, some of whom traveled to Tang China. One such example is that of the Ch’ŏn 泉 (Ch. Quan) clan, which for all practical purposes became Chinese. Another member of the Korean diaspora during the Tang was the Korean leader of a trading imperium, Chang Pogo, who built his early career among the Korean communities of Shandong, but who was assassinated in Korea in 846. Because of constant attacks against Paekche, many Paekche artists and artisans fled to Japan, taking with them their skills in architecture and their knowledge of Buddhist arts, which contributed greatly to the flourishing culture of Japan’s Asuka period (592–645).

Fang’s position is that these were all attempts at survival by Korean commoners who suffered greatly because of the wars. China was the overlord and dominant power in Asia and it acted like a bully towards the Korean peninsula. Many Koreans, such as those mentioned above, leveraged their knowledge of Chinese culture in order to build productive lives for themselves outside of the Korean cultural sphere.

Fang also outlines some points in the debate about this period of history that has been ongoing since the early 2000s among Chinese and Korean scholars. For example, on the issue of whether Koguryŏ should be considered an independent kingdom or only a group of tribes living in Chinese territory, Chinese scholars say that the area north of the Liaodong peninsula where Koguryŏ had constructed stone forts was considered Chinese territory, so the military campaigns of the Sui and Tang were nothing more than internal campaigns to pacify the border...

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