What I’ve discovered
Yon-Gae is named after Yon Gae Somoon (also Yon Kaesomun) a General in the Koguryo Dynasty.
As chief of the Eastern province Yon-Gae was instrumental in introducing Taoism to the Koguryo nation.
Yon-Gae supervised the building of the defensive wall that ran the length of the Liao River.
In 642 he took part in a military coup, thus dethroning the King and exercising the military dictatorship that he had established, giving Yon-Gae the King’s powers.
He once captured the brother-in-law of Kim Yoo-Sin.
The Tang Chinese attacked by land and sea, by 645 they had reached the fortress at Ansi, Yon-Gae with his army and the support of the population, succeeded in defeating the Tang forces.
More attacks followed and failed. The Tang Emperor died in 649.A.D., which benefited Yon-Gae in his attempts to reclaim lost land.
Koguryo became politically weakened by the death of Yon-Gae in 654 A.D. (sometimes 666A.D.) dissent followed in the Koguryo dynasty and eventually allowed the joint forces of Tang and Silla to force King Pojang’s surrender in 668A.D. after which China took over Koguryo as part of the Middle Kingdom, as it had also done with Paeche.
(See also Yoo-Sin)
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In his encyclopaedia General Choi told us: This pattern is named after Yon Gae Somoon, a famous General who lived during the Koguryo Dynasty. The 49 movements refer to the last two figures of 649 A.D., the year he forced the Tang Dynasty to quit Korea after destroying nearly 300,000 of their troops at Ansi Sung. |