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The Goguryeo–Tang Wars occurred in the 7th century between Korean Goguryeo and an allied Chinese Tang Dynasty and Silla. Exhausted from numerous attacks by China, Goguryeo finally succumbed to a two front attack by Tang and Silla. Silla eventually unified the Korean peninsula while the Manchurian areas of Goguryeo was divided between the Tang and Balhae, which considered itself as the successor to Goguryeo.
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Although Goguryeo had repulsed the Sui Dynasty, attacks by the Tang Dynasty from the west proved too formidable. by King Yeongryu. Under Tang Taizong, Sui's succeeding dynasty Tang Dynasty forged an alliance with Goguryeo's rival Silla after defeating Goguryeo's western ally, the Göktürks.
Later in Tang Taizong reign, he also began campaigns against the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo, much to the opposition of many advisors. In 645, A war In the beginning. Taizong commanded an army of 100,000 to 300,000 Tang soldiers.[1] The army was split into two with 40,000 coming across sea and laying siege to Phongyang and 60,000 going through Liaodong led by Li Shiji and Taizong. Taizong's noted army enabled him to conquer a number of border city fortresses of Goguryeo. The Tang army in several cases defeated the Korean forces on open battlefields. Outside the Ansi Fort, Go Yeonsu and Go Hyezin had mobilized 150,000 troops, though it proved to be fruitless. After tactics by Taizong with Li Shiji commanding 15,000 men and Zhangsun Wuji with 11,000 coming from behind, the Korean generals were confused and defeated, the losses were 20,000 for the Koreans and 36,000 captured.
However, forts would be the one issue that the Tang Taizong could not solve, most particularly Ansi fortress itself. the remaining Goguryeo troops get in inside Ansi fortress. Ansi was under siege by the Tang army. However Tang was not able to conquer Ansi fortress. After a protracted siege, Taizong ordered the construction of a large siege ramp by making a mountain of soil to tower over the high Ansi walls. As the mountain rose higher, so did the walls as it was raised higher with wooden extensions. However the siege mountain collapsed, at the same time commander Yang Manchun (Yang was the only commander to defeat Yeon on the battlefield, as Yeon Gaesomun's earlier efforts to take the Ansi Fortress during the civil war that took place after Yeon's coup was unsuccessful.) mobilized the remaining Goguryeo troops to push back the Tang army.
In the end, the Tang army retreated because of the incoming winter that was arriving earlier than expected and because the supply route was cut with heavy losses. The first campaign was ultimately a failure because Taizong unable to take Ansi.
After Taizong's death in 649, the conquest of Goguryeo and the personal rivalry with Yeon Gaesomun became an obsession with Taizong's son Gaozong. He invaded Goguryeo numerous times but Yeon Gaesomun turned the Tang back every time-perhaps most notably during Yeon's celebrated annihilation of the Tang forces in 662 at the Sasu River (蛇水) where the invading general Pang Xiaotai (龐孝泰) and all 13 of his sons were killed in the battle. As a result while Yeon Gaesomun was alive, Tang was not able to conquer the Goguryeo.[2]
Goguryeo's ally in the southwest, Baekje, fell to the Silla-Tang alliance in 661 the victorious allies continued their assault on Goguryeo for the next eight years. Meanwhile, in 666 (though dates vary from 664-666), Yeon Gaesomun died and civil war ensued among his three sons. One of his sons, Yeon Namsaeng fled to Tang and was a big part in the next invasion of Goguryeo by the Tang and served as the primary key to the downfall of Gogureyo, as only when he came did the Tang's emperor was willing to send troops to Goguryeo, since the defector knew the most of the weaknesses and shortcuts that Tang forces did not know of, into Goguryeo's fortified territory.[3] diagonally opposite another son, Yeon Namgeon resist in the face of death to his brother's treachery.
Silla-Tang eventually vanquished the weary kingdom, which had been suffering from a series of famines and internal strife. Goguryeo finally fell in 668.
Silla thus unified most of the Korean peninsula in 668, but the kingdom's reliance on China's Tang Dynasty had its price. Silla had to forcibly resist the imposition of Chinese rule over the entire peninsula, which they did and eventually expelled the Tang. Silla'a unification of Korea was short lived for the former Goguryeo General Dae Joyeong led the remnants of Goguryeo, united with the Mohe and established Balhae, known to Koreans as the successor of Goguryeo, and retaining much of its former territory.
Balhae would become a buffer in trade and was a powerful empire that Tang could not bother. Their end would come from the Khitan tribe. This end was a decisive event in Northeast Asian history for it was the last Korean Kingdom to hold territory in Manchuria.