Gyebaek was a general who lived in the 7th Century in a kingdom of Korea called Baekje, also styled Paekche. At this time Korea was divided into three major kingdoms and Baekje occupied the southwest portion of the peninsula around what is now Seoul. In the 660 Gyebaek led an army of 5000 in a futile last stand at Hwangsan Field against an alliance of neighbouring Silla and Tang China, who fielded armies many times the size of Gyebaek’s. Baekje was conquered after extinguished after 678 years of history.
Early Japan had extensive contact with the Korean kingdoms and there is a possibility that the Imperial family of Japan may indeed be descended from members of a ‘Korean’ ruling class. For obvious reasons that is one of the most explosive questions in Japanese history.
The furore is largely anachronistic of course. 'Korea' and 'Japan' do not mean quite the same thing in this context as people undertand those names to mean now. It’s rather like arguing about how ‘French’ or ‘Scandinavian’ the Normans were.
Anyway Gyebaek is one history's honoured losers. He represents an ideal of loyalty.
(Taekwondo apparently has a form called Gyebaek named in his honour, but I don't train in Taekwondo and know nothing about that.)
Although his personal story has nothing to do with Japan, the events surrounding his heroic death, preceded by a grim overture of killing his own family on the eve of battle, also presages a pivotal moment in proto-Japan - then called Yamato, a name found all over the country now and one that rolls through Japanese history and myth like a thunderclap.
Yamato was allied to Baekje, and in 661 the Japanese Empress Saimei (yes… women did rule…) attempted an expedition to liberate Baekje. Saimei died in Kyushu but the venture went ahead and met with disaster. However, when they returned, it was with refugees from Baekje, people who almost certainly exerted influence in the Yamato government for at least a generation.
More importantly the fall of Baekje and the failed war to liberate it cut early Japan off as a player on the peninsula, seeded the defensive island mentality, and set Japan on a distinct cultural path.
I have seen some of this new TV drama and it is a mythic romanticized treatment. Gyebaek himself comes across like Maximus – only ridiculously handsome into the bargain.
But my principle focus was the weaponry and armour, for in this time a common warrior in Japan (the word ‘samurai’ isn't used yet) may not have looked greatly different to a common warrior in Korea, though I'd like to know to what degree we can qualify that. Gyebaek’s costuming seems a tad too ’beautiful’, except for common soldiers where it is rather non-descript.
View this Angus MacBride illustration of Gyebaek's contemporaries over in Japan - the future Emperor Temmu (centre), Otomo no Fukei (left) and Otomo no Makuta (right):
The armour type is the 'keiko', and Fukei's is actually the fuller version here. This is worn like a poncho and would evolve into the large box-like o-yoroi armour of very early 'samurai'. Makuta is wearing a different armour form called a 'tanko', shorter though his has lower portions attached. Note the straight swords... the famous curved blades of Japan are still centuries away.
This is a full scale figure in a replica of a keiko:
This is how a fully-equipped Japanese warrior representing the central authority of Yamato looked in the 7th to 8th century. Would Gyebaek's men have looked like this?
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