In the fifth year of Xianqing under Emperor Gaozong of Tang (660 AD), Su Dingfang, commander-in-chief of the Tang army on the Shenqiu Route, led his forces across the sea and conquered Baekje. He captured King Uija of Baekje and established the Great Tang Protectorate of Ungjin on Baekje’s former territory, putting Goguryeo under pressure from both north and south. The campaign against Liaodong, which had begun when Emperor Yang of Sui invaded in the seventh year of Daye (605 AD), had dragged on intermittently for more than half a century. At last, the first glimmer of victory appeared.
Yet no sooner had Su Dingfang presented the captured Baekje royal family to the Tang court in Chang’an than rebellions erupted across Baekje. Gwisil Boksin, a distant member of the royal family, and the monk Dochim brought Prince Buyeo Pungjang, who had been held hostage in Wa, back to Baekje and launched a movement to restore the kingdom. The people of Wa seized the opportunity to send troops to the peninsula, hoping to reclaim their former lands in the “four commanderies of Mimana.” Meanwhile, the celebrated general Wang Wendu, newly appointed governor of Ungjin, fell gravely ill and died as soon as he disembarked. Silla, the Tang’s ally, remained evasive, and Tang rule in Baekje teetered on the brink of collapse.
At this critical moment, Wang Wen Zuo, a transmigrator from a thousand years in the future, turned the tide. He fulfilled the long-held wish of generations of Sui and Tang rulers, avenged the fathers and brothers of hundreds of thousands of people from the Central Plains, and made the lands east of the sea part of Great Tang. But this was only the beginning. The world was heading down a different path.
