Yeon Gaesomun (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Yeon Gaesomun, was a powerful and controversial military dictator and Generalissimo in the waning days of Goguryeo, which was one of the Three Kingdoms of ancient Korea. Traditional Korean histories paint Yeon as a despotic leader, whose cruel policies and disobedience to his monarch led to the fall of Goguryeo. However, his achievements in defending Goguryeo against Chinese onslaughts have inspired Korean nationalist historians, most notably the 19th century Korean historian and intellectual Sin Chaeho, to term Yeon the greatest hero in Korean history. Many Korean scholars today echo Sin and praise Yeon as a soldier-statesman without equal in Korean history, though other scholars strongly disagree. Chinese and Japanese scholars continue to hold an unfavorable view of Yeon.