Winter was now at hand, or would be before another plan could be perfected and carried out. The army was without provisions. There was nothing left but to retreat. The Chinese army, still a mighty host, moved slowly back across the Liao River and Ko-gu-ryŭ was left to her own pleasant musings. All that China gained was that portion of Ko-gu-ryŭ lying west of the Liao River, which the Emperor erected into three prefectures.
If Ko-gu-ryŭ flattered herself that her troubles were all over she was wofully mistaken. With the opening of spring the Emperor’s determination to humble her was as strong as ever. All the courtiers urged him to give over the attempt. They had seen enough of Ko-gu-ryŭ. The Emperor, however, was firm in his determination, and in the fourth moon another army was launched against the hardy little kingdom to the east. It crossed the Liao without opposition but when it arrived at Tong-whang Fortress, near the present Eui-ju, it attempted in vain to take it. The Emperor decided therefore to make a thorough conquest of all the Liao-tung territory and delimit the possessions of Ko-gu-ryŭ as far as the Yalu River, To this end siege was laid to the Fortress of Liao-tung. After twenty days the town was still intact and the Chinese seemingly as far from victory as ever. Ladders were tried but without effect. A bank of earth was thrown up[up] as high as the wall of the town, but this too failed. Platforms of timber were erected and rolled up to the wall on trucks of eight wheels each. This seemed to promise success but just as the attempt was to be made fortune favored Ko-gu-ryŭ, for news came to the Chinese that an insurrection had arisen in China, headed by Yang Hyŭn-gam. The tents were hastily struck and the army by forced marches moved rapidly back towards China. At first the Ko-gu-ryŭ forces thought this was a mere feint but when the truth was known they rushed in pursuit and succeeded in putting several thousands of the Chinese braves hors de combat.
The following year the Emperor wanted to return to the charge but an envoy came from Ko-gu-ryŭ offering the king’s humble submission. To this the Emperor replied “Then let him come in person and present it.” This he would not do.
Four years later the king of Ko-gu-ryŭ died and his brother Kön-mu assumed control. It was in this same year 618 that the great T’ang dynasty was founded on the ruins of the Sui and the fear of vengeance was lifted from Ko-gu-ryŭ. She immediately sent an envoy to the T’ang court offering her allegiance. Păk-je and Sil-la were only a year behind her in paying their respects to the new Emperor. As a test of Ko-gu-ryŭ sincerity, Emperor Kao-tsu demanded that she send back the captives taken during the late war. As the price of peace Ko-gu-ryŭ complied and sent back 10,000 men. The next year the T’ang Emperor conferred the title of royalty upon all the three kings of the peninsula which, instead of settling the deadly feud between them, simply opened a new and final scene of the fratricidal struggle. To Ko-gu-ryŭ the Emperor sent books on the Shinto faith, of the introduction of which into Korea we here have the first intimation.
Now that danger from the west no longer threatened Ko-gu-ryŭ, she turned to her neighbors and began to exercise her arms upon them. Păk-je also attacked Sil-la fiercely and soon a triangular war was being waged in the peninsula which promised to be a war of extermination unless China should interfere. Of course each wished the Emperor to interfere in her behalf and each plied the throne of China with recriminations of the others and with justifications of herself until the Emperor was wholly at a loss to decide between them. Perhaps it was not his policy to put an end to the war but let it rage until the whole peninsula was exhausted, when it would become an easy prey to his arms. At any rate he gave encouragement to none of them but simply told them to stop fighting. Ko-gu-ryŭ diplomatically added to her supplications a request for Buddhist, Taoist and Shinto teachers.
The details of this series of hostilities between the three Korean states form a tangled skein. First one border fort was taken and then recovered, then the same was repeated at another point; and so it went all along the line, now one being victorious and now another. Large forces were not employed at any one time or place, but it was a skirmish fire all along the border, burning up brightly first at one spot and then at another. One remarkable statement in the records, to the effect that Ko-gu-ryŭ began the building of a wall straight across the peninsula from Eui-ju to the Japan Sea to keep out the people of the northern tribes, seems almost incredible. If true it is another testimony to the great power of Ko-gu-ryŭ. It is said the work was finished in sixteen years.
In 632, after a reign of fifty years, King Chim-p’yŭng died without male issue but his daughter Tong-man, a woman of strong personality, ascended the throne of Sil-la, being the first of her sex that ever sat on a Korean throne.
Many stories are told of her precocity. Once when she was a mere child her father had received from the Emperor a picture of the mok-tan flower together with some seeds of the same. She immediately remarked that the flowers would have no perfume. When asked why she thought so she replied “Because there is no butterfly on them in the picture.” While not a valid argument, it showed a power of observation very uncommon in a child. This proved to be true, for when the seeds sprouted and grew the blossoms had no fragrance. The Emperor conferred upon her the title of royalty, the same as upon a male sovereign.
The first few years of her reign were peaceful ones for Sil-la, and Păk-je, as usual when relieved of the stress of war, fell back into her profligate ways again. The king built gardens and miniature lakes, bringing water from a point some twenty li away to supply them. Here he spent his time in sport and debauchery while the country ruled itself.
In the fifth year of her reign Queen Tong-man, while walking in her palace grounds, passed a pond of water but suddenly stopped and exclaimed “There is war on our western border.” When asked her reasons for thinking so she pointed to the frogs in the pond and said “See how red their eyes are. It means that there is war on the border.” As if to bear out her statement, swift messengers came the next day announcing that Păk-je was again at work along the western border. So runs the story.