ABSTRACT
With Paekche and Kogury apparently pacified, the Emperor now hoped to inaugurate a new era of peace for the whole of the Far East. In the autumn of 665 his representative called a reluctant King Munmu of Silla to join the newly appointed Yung of Paekche on a hilltop near Kongju where Daoist priests sacrificed a white horse to the spirits of earth and heaven and the spirits of the hills and rivers. The two kings then touched its blood to their lips and swore, under the peril of an everlasting curse, to keep an everlasting peace. King Yung was then taken back across the Yellow Sea, along with representatives from Japan and Tamna, as the island of Cheju was then known, to the sacred mountain of Taishan on the Shandong Peninsula, where they were joined by Poknam, the crown prince of Kogury , Kin In-mun of Silla and finally by the Emperor himself. They all ascended the mountain and took part in another sacrifice and an international pledge of peace.
