{"id":1075427,"date":"2026-08-03T18:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T09:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thekoreantoday.com\/mapo\/2026\/08\/03\/history-lives-on-goguryeo-series-episode-16-the-endless-war-tang\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T18:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T09:20:15","slug":"history-lives-on-goguryeo-series-episode-16-the-endless-war-tang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thekoreantoday.com\/mapo\/2026\/08\/03\/history-lives-on-goguryeo-series-episode-16-the-endless-war-tang\/","title":{"rendered":"[History Lives On – Goguryeo Series] Episode 16: The Endless War – Tang"},"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 16: The Endless War – Tang’s Repeated Invasions<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Winning a battle is not the same as winning a war. Even after Goguryeo turned back Emperor Taizong at Ansi Fortress in 645, peace never came. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

The victory at Ansi was sweet but inconclusive. Rather than risk another massed frontal assault, Tang Taizong pivoted to a strategy of relentless border raids designed to exhaust Goguryeo over time \u2014 and after his death, his son Emperor Gaozong inherited the same playbook. 647, 648, 655, 661: over fourteen years, wave after wave of invasion slowly ground down the kingdom’s strength. <\/p>\n

Why does a nation grow weaker even as it keeps winning its battles? When there is no single decisive clash but an endless war of attrition, what actually determines who survives? <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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

While Goguryeo absorbed repeated Tang offensives, the Byzantine Empire was locked in its own multi-decade war of attrition against a rising Islamic Caliphate \u2014 winning tactical engagements after the catastrophic 636 defeat at Yarmouk, yet steadily bleeding territory and treasury for a generation, much as Goguryeo bled men and grain with every repelled invasion. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u25c6<\/span> The Ancient Landscape <\/h3>\n
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After the failure at Ansi in 645, Tang Taizong refused to abandon the campaign \u2014 he simply changed tactics. Small, frequent raiding forces began targeting Goguryeo’s border fortresses to burn granaries and withdraw before a decisive engagement could form, a strategy classical Chinese strategists called “resting while the enemy tires.” In 647, generals Niu Jinda and Li Ji struck the Namso and Seokseong fortresses in Liaodong. In January 648, General Xue Wanche led over 30,000 troops and a fleet of warships across the sea to attack Bakjak Fortress near the mouth of the Yalu River. <\/p>\n

Goguryeo general Go Mun counterattacked from the direction of Ogol and Anji fortresses with 30,000 troops, encircling the Tang forces; by August, Xue Wanche’s army retreated after suffering heavy losses. A planned massive invasion in 649 never materialized \u2014 Emperor Taizong died before it launched. War resumed in 655 when his son, Emperor Gaozong, sent Cheng Mingzhen and Su Dingfang across the Liao River under the pretext of aiding Silla. Then in 661, Gaozong committed six separate army columns \u2014 led by Su Dingfang, Ren Yaxiang, Pang Xiaotai, and others \u2014 pushing all the way to Pyongyang itself. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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“Su Dingfang laid siege to Pyongyang. Yeon Gaesomun sent his son Namsaeng with tens of thousands of elite troops to hold the Yalu River, and the Tang armies could not cross.” <\/p>\n