ABSTRACT
As WE HAVE seen, Kogury had cultivated its relations with the southern dynasties of China to balance the threat across the Liao from the northern ones, so that when in 589 they heard that in the south the Chen had fallen to the Sui they closed their frontiers and began to prepare for war. This earned them a strong rebuke from the Sui emperor Wendi, to which King Y ngyang responded with a humble apology and was granted the vassal's title of 'Duke', after which he applied again in 591, with tribute, and was invested as 'King'. In fact there was little chance of harmony, for the Sui wanted to regain control of Manchuria, whilst Kogury regarded its Malgal tribesmen as their own vassals and employed them as their infantry.
