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Eulji Mundeok

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

When Emperor Yang of Sui invaded with an army said to number 1.13 million in 612, Eulji Mundeok entered the enemy camp under pretence of surrender to observe it. As a detached force of more than 300,000 under Yu Zhongwen and Yuwen Shu marched straight on Pyongyang, he feigned defeat to draw them deep and sent Yu Zhongwen a five-character poem: "Your merit is already great; be content and stop." As the exhausted Sui troops withdrew across the Salsu River (thought to be the Cheongcheon), he attacked, and only 2,700 men are said to have made it home.

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2 related events

  1. AD 598 – AD 614Goguryeo–Sui Warscommander

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

  2. 1
    AD 612Battle of Salsu Rivercommander

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

Related works

People who appear alongside

  • King YeongyangAD 618

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

  • Emperor Yang of SuiAD 569 – AD 618

    Second Sui emperor whose three invasions of Goguryeo failed

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