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PersonAD 618

King Yeongyang

Twenty-sixth king of Goguryeo, who struck Liaoxi and repelled the Sui invasions

When Sui, which had unified China in 589, demanded submission, he struck first at Liaoxi in 598 with more than 10,000 Malgal troops. Emperor Wen of Sui answered with an army of 300,000, which withdrew after monsoon rains and epidemics. In 612 Emperor Yang’s huge army could not get past Liaodong Fortress, and its detached force was crushed by Eulji Mundeok at the Salsu River. In 600 he had Yi Mun-jin, an erudite of the Taehak, condense the old history Yugi into the five-volume Sinjip. It was also around this time that the monk Damjing taught the making of paper and ink in Japan.

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4 related events

  1. 1
    AD 598Goguryeo Strikes Liaoximonarch

    King Yeongyang led some 10,000 Malgal troops in a pre-emptive attack on Sui’s Liaoxi; Emperor Wen’s counter-invasion of 300,000 failed.

  2. AD 598 – AD 614Goguryeo–Sui Warsmonarch

    Sui, having reunified China, invaded Goguryeo four times and failed every time; the campaigns helped bring Sui down.

  3. 2
    AD 600Yi Mun-jin compiles the Sinjipmonarch

    Under King Yeongyang, the Taehak scholar Yi Mun-jin condensed the 100-volume Yugi, Goguryeo’s early history, into the five-volume Sinjip.

  4. 3
    AD 612Battle of Salsu Rivermonarch

    Goguryeo forces under Eulji Mundeok routed a Sui strike force at the Salsu (Cheongcheon) River.

People who appear alongside

  • Emperor Yang of SuiAD 569 – AD 618

    Second Sui emperor whose three invasions of Goguryeo failed

  • Eulji Mundeok

    Goguryeo general who lured the Sui strike force inland and destroyed it at the Salsu River

  • Yi Mun-jin

    Goguryeo scholar of the Taehak under King Yeongyang who condensed the 100-volume Yugi into the five-volume Sinjip

Themes this person appears in

  • Wars of Korean UnificationAD 598 – AD 676

    From Goguryeo's wars with Sui and Tang to Silla's unification — eighty years of East Asian war on the peninsula

  • Sui, Tang and the East Asian WorldAD 317 – AD 979

    From the divided Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Gupta age through the Sui and Tang empires to the founding of the Song — the age when an East Asian world sharing law codes, Buddhism, Confucianism and Chinese characters took shape, and Korea and Japan built their states on its model

  • Writing Korean HistoryAD 375 – 1931

    From the Seogi, Guksa and Sinjip to the Joseon sanggosa — history-writing as royal display, Confucian record, assertion of independence and nationalist scholarship