The Thousand-Li Wall
Wind, campfire and river sounds change with every scene, and the music follows the story.
In 598 and 612, Sui sent huge armies against Goguryeo again and again. In 612, the Goguryeo minister Eulji Mundeok spied out the enemy camp with a false surrender, lured the enemy deep into the country until they were exhausted, and then crushed the Sui army at the Salsu. Sui invaded twice more and was driven back both times, and in 618 it collapsed.
Characters
Wears five swords
Seeks peace with Tang
Becomes king in 642
Imagined character
Imagined character
to Goguryeo in 641
In 618, King Yeongyang died, and his half-brother Geonmu took the throne. He was King Yeongnyu.
is over.
my people rest.
That same year in China, Sui fell and Tang rose.
In 622, Emperor Gaozu of Tang sent a letter proposing that each side send home the people scattered by the wars of the Sui era.
so release our people there as well.
and send them all home.
Goguryeo found every Chinese person in the kingdom and sent them home. They numbered more than 10,000.
Now I’m going home.
Emperor Gaozu of Tang was greatly pleased.
In 624, a Tang Daoist priest arrived bearing a statue of the Heavenly Worthy and lectured on the Laozi. The king and the people of the kingdom listened.
is not the eternal Way…
without fighting…
Later, to congratulate Emperor Taizong of Tang on capturing the khagan of the Turks, King Yeongnyu presented him with the “Bongyeokdo,” a map of Goguryeo’s lands.
In 631, a Tang envoy
appeared on the old battlefield.
Tang sent Zhangsun Shi to gather and bury the bones of the Sui soldiers and to hold rites for them.
of the Sui soldiers.
that gyeonggwan!
The gyeonggwan was a mound that victorious Goguryeo had raised during the war with Sui, by gathering the enemy dead and heaping earth over them.
tearing that down?
That Sui lost here.
the gyeonggwan, Majesty!
will surely come.
on the western frontier!
King Yeongnyu called up the people and set them to building a long wall.
More than a thousand li, from Buyeo Fortress in the northeast to the sea. It took 16 years to finish.
The Samguk Yusa records that at this time “the men built the wall, and the women plowed the fields.”
I want to come too!
plow the fields.
safe and sound.
From every district, many people left for the western frontier.
They carried earth on A-frame carriers, poured it into wooden frames, and pounded it down layer by layer with rammers.
Pound it down!
Year after year went by. Little by little, the wall grew longer across the plains.
you some millet rice.
up to my shoulder.
In 640, King Yeongnyu sent Crown Prince Hwan-gwon to Tang and asked that the sons of Goguryeo nobles be admitted to study at the Tang national academy.
The following year,
an envoy came from Tang.
In 641, the Tang envoy Chen Dade entered Goguryeo. At every fortress he reached, he showered the officials in charge with silk.
If there’s fine scenery, I’d like to see it.
Allow me to show you around!
The officials gladly guided him, and there was nowhere they did not take him.
for a few bolts of silk…
just for the scenery?
In this way, Chen Dade came to know every corner of Goguryeo’s roads and fortresses, mountains and rivers.
Whenever he met Chinese who had come to fight in the Sui era and never made it home, Chen Dade gave them news of their relatives back home.
back home.
is alive?
Everyone wept. Wherever he went, men and women lined both sides of the road to see him.
When Chen Dade reached Pyongyang, the king received him with a grand array of troops.
Flags, so many.
The people of Goguryeo did not realize he had come to spy out the kingdom’s inner workings.
Back home, Chen Dade reported to Emperor Taizong of Tang that Goguryeo was badly frightened by the news of Gaochang’s fall.
the whole kingdom into its defense.
it won’t be hard.
But he said that since the districts of Shandong (eastern China) had not yet recovered from their ruin, he would not burden the people.
In the 1st month of 642, King Yeongnyu put Yeon Gaesomun, noble of the Eastern Division, in charge of building the wall.
A new overseer
came to the wall.
His father, noble of the Eastern Division, had served as Daedaero. When his father died, he succeeded him as noble.
Hurry!
Among the workers, this story went around about the new overseer.
in the water…
It means “deep pool.”
The Samguk Sagi records that he bewitched people by claiming he had been born in the water.
This was earlier, when his father died. The nobles would not let him succeed, saying he was cruel and violent by nature.
take up the post.
and I will bear no grudge.
Taking pity on him, they agreed.
If the wall is late, Tang will come.
The Samguk Sagi records that he wore five swords on his body, so that the people around him dared not look up at him.
The Samguk Sagi records that after he took up the post he behaved so brutally that the nobles and the king secretly plotted to do away with him.
the kingdom is in danger.
know of this.
But the plot leaked out.
In the 10th month of 642, under the pretense of holding a military review, Yeon Gaesomun gathered all the troops of his division.
Today I’ll show you my troops.
He then laid out a lavish spread of wine and food south of Pyongyang Fortress and invited the ministers to watch with him.
Once all the ministers had gathered, Yeon Gaesomun’s soldiers killed every one of them. They numbered more than a hundred.
From there he galloped straight into the palace.
King Yeongnyu
lost his life that day.
It was the twenty-fifth year of King Yeongnyu’s reign.
The news spread like the wind, all the way to the wall construction site in the west.
has happened in the capital!
is dead.
talking about that.
Yeon Gaesomun set Jang, son of King Yeongnyu’s younger brother King Daeyang, on the throne. He was King Bojang.
to me, your Mangniji.
He made himself Mangniji, a post like Tang’s Minister of War and Director of the Secretariat rolled into one.
Now he issued orders far and near and ran the affairs of state as he pleased.
Clear the way!
The Samguk Sagi records that whenever he mounted or dismounted his horse, he made a noble or a general lie face down on the ground and stepped on his back.
In the 3rd month of 643, Yeon Gaesomun addressed King Bojang.
The three teachings are like the three legs of a cauldron:
not one of them may be missing.
三敎譬如鼎足 闕一不可 — Samguk Sagi, 2nd year of King Bojang
Send envoys to Tang and seek out Daoism.
Emperor Taizong of Tang sent eight Daoist priests, including Shuda, along with Laozi’s Daodejing. The king was delighted and lodged them in Buddhist temples.
the kingdom will be in danger.
The Samguk Yusa tells that Bodeok, a monk of Ballyongsa Temple, tried many times to dissuade the king, but the king would not listen.
Earlier, in the 11th month of 642, Emperor Taizong of Tang had heard of King Yeongnyu’s death and mourned him in the palace garden.
as he likes. I cannot let it stand.
it will not be too late to strike then.
Taizong sent an envoy to invest King Bojang as “King of Goguryeo.”
And he waited
for Goguryeo to grow arrogant.
protect us?
We built it.
Under the western sky, the wall was not yet finished.
Some called him a traitor who killed his king; others called him a hero who defended the kingdom against Tang.
Before the wall is even finished,
in 645, Emperor Taizong of Tang
comes in person with a great army.
