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No warning had reached Japan. She was taken entirely unawares, and she regarded it as an act of treachery on Shiragi's part to have transformed itself suddenly from a tribute-bearing friend into an active enemy. Strangely enough, the King of Shiragi does not appear to have considered that his act precluded a continuance of friendly relations with the Yamato Court.
Shiragi acquiesced in all their proposals and pledged herself once for all to recognize Mimana as a dependency of Japan.
It took place that very year . When the news reached Japan, the Empress Suiko would have sent an envoy against Shiragi, but it was deemed wiser to employ diplomacy in the first place, for the principalities of Korea were now in close relations with the great Tang dynasty of China and might even count on the latter's protection in case of emergency.
Resolving to strike separately at his enemies, Koma and Shiragi, he threw himself with all his forces against Koma and gained a signal victory . Then, at length, Japan was induced to assist. An omi was despatched to the peninsula with a thousand soldiers, as many horses and forty ships. Shiragi became at once the objective of the united forces of Kudara and Japan.
The Shiragi men fought with desperate tenacity. One wing of their army was broken, but the other held its ground, and two of the Japanese generals fell in essaying to dislodge it. Neither side could claim a decisive victory, but both were too much exhausted to renew the combat. This was not the limit of Japan's misfortunes.
They withdrew their forces, but no sooner had their ships passed below the horizon than Shiragi once more invaded Mimana. It seemed at this juncture as though the stars in their courses fought against Japan. Something, indeed, must be ascribed to her own methods of warfare which appear to have been overmerciful for the age.
Japanese archaeologists identify "mother's land" as Shiragi in Korea, and Tokoyo-no-kuni as the western country where the sun sets, namely China. Susanoo is also quoted as saying, "there are gold and silver in Koma and it were well that there should be a floating treasury;"* so he built a vessel of pine and camphor-wood to export these treasures to Japan.
All the parties to the dispute, Kudara, Shiragi, and Habe, were required to send envoys to the Yamato Court for the purpose of hearing the rescript read, and thus Japan's pre-eminence was constructively acknowledged. But her order provoked keen resentment in Shiragi and Habe.
But one great captain, Pok-sin, saved the situation. Collecting the fugitive troops of Kudara he fell suddenly on Shiragi and drove her back, thereafter appealing for Japanese aid. At the Yamato Court Shiragi was now regarded as a traditional enemy. It had played fast and loose again and again about Mimana, and in the year 657 it had refused safe conduct for a Japanese embassy to the Tang Court.
Thereafter, intercourse between Japan and the peninsula was of a fitful character unmarked by any noteworthy event until, in the second year of the "White Pheasant" era, the Yamato Court essayed to assert itself in a futile fashion by refusing to give audience to Shiragi envoys because they wore costumes after the Tang fashion without offering any excuse for such a caprice.
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