{"id":111457,"date":"2026-08-07T16:20:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T07:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thekoreantoday.com\/junggu\/2026\/08\/07\/history-lives-on-goguryeo-series-episode-20-the-flame-that-would-not-die\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T16:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T07:20:20","slug":"history-lives-on-goguryeo-series-episode-20-the-flame-that-would-not-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thekoreantoday.com\/junggu\/2026\/08\/07\/history-lives-on-goguryeo-series-episode-20-the-flame-that-would-not-die\/","title":{"rendered":"[History Lives On – Goguryeo Series] Episode 20: The Flame That Would Not Die"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u9ad8<\/span> <\/div>\n
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THE KOREAN TODAY<\/p>\n

History Lives On<\/h1>\n
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The Goguryeo Chronicle<\/h2>\n

Episode 20: The Flame That Would Not Die<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Even after the kingdom fell, people raised the banner again. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

In September 668, Pyongyang Fortress fell and King Bojang was taken captive to Tang China. Nearly 200,000 Goguryeo people were forcibly resettled into Tang territory, and the seven-century-old kingdom appeared to have vanished from history. But the fall was not the end. Across the ruined homeland, scattered survivors began regrouping \u2014 much as displaced peoples across history, from Anglo-Saxon thegns after Hastings to Visigothic nobles after the Muslim conquest of Iberia, have tried to reconstitute a lost order in exile. <\/p>\n

Why do people raise a flag again after their nation is gone \u2014 and by whose hand does that flame eventually go out? <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\ud83c\udf0d Western Historical Parallel <\/h4>\n

When Goguryeo loyalists rallied around Prince Ansung in 670, the Byzantine Empire was bracing for the Umayyad Caliphate’s first great siege of Constantinople (674-678) \u2014 another ancient power fighting to survive on a shrinking foothold while a new imperial order rose around it. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u25c6<\/span> The Ancient Landscape <\/h3>\n
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In February 669, the year after Pyongyang’s fall, the Goguryeo royal Ansung defected to Silla with roughly 4,000 households. Across the former kingdom, pockets of unbowed refugees still resisted Tang rule, waiting for a rallying figure. <\/p>\n

In April 670, a Goguryeo noble named Geommojam raised an army from Suim Fortress, gathering the scattered survivors. He met Ansung on the small island of Sayado and installed him as king, then in June established their base at Hansong (\u6f22\u57ce, believed to be near modern Jaeryong, Hwanghae Province). Silla’s King Munmu formally recognized Ansung as “King of Goguryeo.” That same March, Silla troops and Goguryeo refugee forces had already crossed the Yalu to strike Tang preemptively \u2014 the opening move of the Silla-Tang War. For Silla, embracing the Goguryeo remnant as a buffer state and ally against Tang was, much like Rome’s use of Germanic foederati along its frontiers, a matter of hard strategic calculation. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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“Mojam, the great elder of Suim Fortress, gathered the surviving people, killing Tang officials and the monk Beopan from Gungmo Fortress to south of the Pae River. Heading toward Silla, he reached Sayado in the Western Sea, where he met Ansung, son of the Goguryeo minister Yeon Jeongto, and brought him to Hansong to be honored as their lord.” <\/p>\n