Relations with China of Paekche at the Chinese court of
Emperor Yuan of Liang in his capital
Jingzhou in 516–520 CE, with explanatory text.
Portraits of Periodical Offering of Liang, 11th century Song copy. In 372,
King Geunchogo paid
tribute to the
Jin dynasty of
China, located in the basin of the
Yangtze River. After the fall of Jin and the establishment of
Song dynasty in 420, Paekche sent envoys seeking cultural goods and technologies. Paekche sent an envoy to
Northern Wei of Northern Dynasties for the first time in 472, and
King Gaero asked for military aid to attack
Goguryeo. Kings
Muryeong and
Seong sent envoys to
Liang several times and received titles of nobility. Tomb of King Muryeong is built with bricks according with Liang's tomb style.
Relations with Japan Paekche gave to Yamato
Cultural impact and military assistance To confront the military pressure of
Goguryeo to its north and
Silla to its east, Paekche (
Kudara in Japanese) established close relations with Japan. According to the Korean chronicle
Samguk sagi, Paekche and Silla sent some princes to the Japanese court as hostages. Whether the princes sent to Japan should be interpreted as diplomats as part of an embassy or literal
hostages is debated. Due to the confusion on the exact nature of this relationship (the question of whether the Paekche Koreans were family or at least close to the Japanese Imperial line or whether they were hostages) and the fact that the
Nihon Shoki, a primary source of material for this relationship, is a compilation of myth, makes it difficult to evaluate. The
Samguk sagi, which also documents this, can also be interpreted in various ways and at any rate it was rewritten in the 13th century, easily seven or eight centuries after these particular events took place. Adding to the confusion is the discovery (in Japan) that the "Inariyama sword, as well as some other swords discovered in Japan, utilized the Korean '
Idu' system of writing". The swords "originated in Paekche and that the kings named in their inscriptions represent Paekche kings rather than Japanese kings". . In any case, these Koreans, diplomats and royal relatives or not, brought to Japan knowledge of the Chinese writing system, Buddhism, iron processing for weapons, and various other technologies. In exchange, Japan provided military support. According to mythical accounts in the controversial
Nihon Shoki,
Empress Jingū extracted tribute and pledges of allegiance from the kings of Paekche,
Silla, and
Goguryeo. At the height of
Japanese nationalism in the early 20th century, Japanese historians used these mythical accounts along with a passage in the
Gwanggaeto Stele to establish ideological rationale to the imperialist outcry for invasion of Korea. Other historians have pointed out that there is no evidence of this Japanese account in any part of Korea, in addition to not being in any viable text in China or Korea. Regarding the Gwanggaeto Stele, because the lack of syntax and punctuation the text can be interpreted 4 different ways. Due to this problem in interpretation, nothing can be concluded. Also complicating the matter is that in the
Nihongi a Korean named
Amenohiboko is described in
Nihon Shoki as a maternal predecessor of , This is highly inconsistent and difficult to interpret correctly. Scholars believe that the
Nihon Shoki gives the invasion date of Silla and Paekche as the late 4th century. However, by this time, Japan was a confederation of local tribes without sophisticated iron weapons, while the Three Kingdoms of Korea were fully developed centralized powers with modern iron weapons and were already utilizing horses for warfare. It is very unlikely that a developing state such as Yamato had the capacity to cross the sea and engage in battles with Paekche and Silla. The
Nihon Shoki is widely regarded to be an unreliable and biased source of information on early relations with Korea, as it mixes heavy amounts of supposition and legend with facts. Some Japanese scholars interpret the
Gwanggaeto Stele, erected in 414 by
King Jangsu of
Goguryeo, as describing a Japanese invasion in the southern portion of the Korean peninsula. However, Mohan claims that Goguryeo fabricated the Japanese invasion in order to justify its conquest of Paekche. Xu Jianxin of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences discovered the earliest rubbed copy which was made before 1881. He also concluded that there was no evidence the Japanese had intentionally damaged any of the characters on the Stele. although its size and effect are disputed. In the project of writing a common history textbook, Kim Tae-sik of Hongik University (Korea) denied Japan's theory. But,
Kōsaku Hamada of Kyushu University (Japan) reported their interpretations of the Gwanggaeto Stele text, neither of them adopting the intentionally damaged stele theory in their interpretations.
The fall of Paekche and military support from Japan looks like mirrors of Paekche. Some members of the Paekche nobility and royalty emigrated to Japan even before the kingdom was overthrown. In response to Paekche's request, Japan in 663 sent the general
Abe no Hirafu with 20,000 troops and 1,000 ships to revive Paekche with
Buyeo Pung (known in Japanese as Hōshō), a son of
Uija of Paekche who had been an
emissary to Japan. Around August 661, 10,000 soldiers and 170 ships, led by Abe no Hirafu, arrived. Additional Japanese reinforcement, including 27,000 soldiers led by
Kamitsukeno no Kimi Wakako (上毛野君稚子) and 10,000 soldiers led by
Iohara no Kimi (廬原君) also arrived at Paekche in 662. This attempt, however, failed at the
Battle of Baekgang, and the prince escaped to Goguryeo. According to the
Nihon Shoki, 400 Japanese ships were lost in the battles. Only half of the troops were able to return to Japan. The Japanese army retreated to Japan with several thousand Paekche refugees. The former royal family members were initially treated as "foreign guests" (蕃客) and were not incorporated into the political system of Japan for some time. Buyeo Pung's younger brother Seon'gwang (Zenkō in Japanese) ( or ) used the family name
Kudara no Konikishi ("King of Paekche") () (they are also called the Kudara clan, as Paekche was called Kudara in Japanese). ==Legacy==