To Sabi, and Then Gwansan Fortress
Wind, campfire and river sounds change with every scene, and the music follows the story.
On a stone tablet in the brick tomb uncovered at Songsan-ri, Gongju, in 1971 was carved the name “King Sama of Baekje,” that is, King Muryeong. Taking the throne in 501, King Muryeong put down Baek Ga’s revolt and drove back Goguryeo again and again, reviving a Baekje left reeling by the loss of Hanseong. When the king died in 523, his son Myeongnong took the throne and laid his father to rest in a tomb of lotus-patterned bricks.
Characters
King Muryeong’s son
The future King Wideok
Name not recorded
(flashback)
Youngest son of the last king of Geumgwan
Gogan of Samnyeonsan County
The seventh month of 554. A mountain road in the dead of night.
The king of Baekje was hurrying through the dark with just fifty soldiers.
Who was this king, and why had he taken to this road by night?
The story begins thirty-one years earlier,
in Ungjin, the Baekje capital.
In the fifth month of 523, King Muryeong died, and his son Myeongnong took the throne.
The Samguk Sagi records that he was outstanding in wisdom and insight and decisive in handling affairs, so the people of the kingdom called him “King Seong,” the Sage King.
In the tenth month of 529, the seventh year of his reign, King Anjang of Goguryeo invaded at the head of his own army and took Hyeol Fortress on the northern frontier.
Jwapyeong Yeon Mo met them with 30,000 troops,
but he was defeated on the plain of Ogok, and over 2,000 men lost their lives.
Ungjin, the capital Baekje had hastily moved to after losing Hanseong in 475, was a narrow strip of land between mountains and a river.
The king dreamed of a new capital: Sabi, a broad plain downstream along the Geum River.
Sabi: a land where the Geum River curled around a low mountain, with a broad plain spreading out before it.
A fortress rose on Busosan, and below it, one by one, palaces, temples and broad avenues.
In the spring of 538, Baekje at last moved its capital to Sabi.
The Baekje royal house believed it had come from Buyeo. In the new capital, the king named the kingdom “Nambuyeo,” Southern Buyeo.
Sabi was a capital planned from the start. Its north and east sides were enclosed by a long earthen wall, the Naseong.
In 541, King Seong asked Liang, across the sea, to send him a scholar of the Book of Songs, commentaries on Buddhist scriptures such as the Nirvana Sutra, and craftsmen and painters.
Liang granted the request.
In the first month of 548, when Goguryeo, together with the Ye, attacked Baekje’s Doksan Fortress, King Seong asked his ally Silla for help. The Silla general Ju Jin led 3,000 armored troops, marching day and night, and crushed the Goguryeo army.
In the first month of 550, Baekje took Goguryeo’s Dosal Fortress. In the third month, Goguryeo attacked Baekje’s Geumhyeon Fortress.
Then Silla, seizing the moment when both armies were exhausted,
took both fortresses for itself.
In 551, Baekje and Silla attacked Goguryeo together.
Baekje took its old lands on the lower Han, and Silla the ten counties of the upper Han beyond Jungnyeong Pass.
At last the Baekje army entered the land of Hanseong, its old capital on the Han River.
They had won back, after seventy-six years, the land lost in 475 when King Gaero lost his life.
King Seong’s father, King Muryeong, was the king who had once written to Liang that “Baekje has become a strong nation once more.”
In the seventh month of 553, Silla seized Baekje’s northeastern frontier — the land on the lower Han River — and set up “Sinju” there.
Urgent news reached the palace at Sabi. At the king’s side was his eldest son, Chang.
And so the alliance between the two kingdoms, which had lasted nearly 120 years, was broken.
In the tenth month of 553, King Seong’s daughter was married into Silla.
It was three months after Silla had taken Baekje’s land on the Han. Why the king sent his daughter is not recorded anywhere.
Silla’s records say that in the tenth month of that year, King Jinheung took the Baekje king’s daughter as a “lesser queen” (sobi).
In the seventh month of 554, Baekje and Gaya attacked Silla’s Gwansan Fortress.
Silla’s military governor, Gakgan Udeok, and Ichan Tamji fought back, but the battle went badly for Silla.
Hearing the news, Kim Mu-ryeok, military governor of Sinju, rushed to Gwansan Fortress with the Sinju troops.
Gwansan Fortress was a Silla fortress, east of Sabi, up the Geum River.
At first, the battle seemed to be tilting in Baekje’s favor.
And then came that night in the seventh month of 554.
The Samguk Sagi records that, intending to attack Silla, the king took only fifty foot soldiers and horsemen and reached Gucheon by night.
Across the stream, in the dark, Silla soldiers lay hidden.
The Silla ambush sprang.
Baekje’s record says only this of the king’s end.
The king was slain by soldiers
in the confusion of battle.
為亂兵所害薨 — Samguk Sagi, Baekje Annals, 32nd year of King Seong (554)
Day broke. Only riderless horses remained by the stream, wandering about.
Silla’s records say that the Baekje king was killed by Dodo, Gogan of Samnyeonsan County and an aide to Kim Mu-ryeok.
Having lost its king, the Baekje army collapsed.
According to Silla’s records, four Baekje Jwapyeong and 29,600 soldiers lost their lives in this battle.
Outside the gate of Sabi, people waited for those who would not return.
Silla’s records add: “Not a single horse made it home.”
King Seong’s eldest son, Chang, took the throne. He is the king later known as “King Wideok.”
How the princess who had married into Seorabeol heard the news of her father is not recorded anywhere.
Sabi, the capital King Seong built, remained the Baekje capital for more than 120 years after that.
The Han River, once won back, was lost again,
but the capital by the river remained.
