ma invaded Kudara and held the land at his mercy, he
declined to follow his generals' counsels of extermination in
deference to Kudara's long friendship with Yamato. It is related
that, after this disaster, the Japanese Emperor gave the town of
Ung-chhon (Japanese, Kumanari) to the remnant of the Kudara people,
and the latter's capital was then transferred from its old site in
the centre of the peninsula--a place no longer tenable--to the
neighbourhood of Mimana. Thenceforth Yuryaku aided Kudara zealously.
He not only despatched a force of five hundred men to guard the
palace of the King, but also sent (480) a flotilla of war-vessels to
attack Koma from the west coast. The issue of this attempt is not
recorded, and the silence of the annals may be construed as
indicating failure. Koma maintained at that epoch relations of
intimate friendship with the powerful Chinese dynasty of the Eastern
Wei, and Yuryaku's essays against such a combination were futile,
though he prosecuted them with considerable vigour.

After his death the efficiency of Japan's operations in Korea was
greatly impaired by factors hitherto happily unknown in her foreign
affairs--treason and corruption. Lord Oiwa, whose shooting of his
fellow general, Karako, has already been noted, retained his post as
governor of Mimana for twenty-one years, and then (487), ambitious of
wider sway, opened relations with Koma for the joint invasion of
Kudara, in order that he himself might ascend the throne of the
latter. A desperate struggle ensued. Several battles were fought, in
all of which the victory is historically assigned to Oiwa, but if he
really did achieve any success, it was purely ephemeral, for he
ultimately abandoned the campaign and returned to Japan, giving
another shock to his country's waning reputation in the peninsula. If
the Yamato Court took any steps to punish this act of lawless
ambition, there is no record in that sense. The event occurred in the
last year of Kenso's reign, and neither that monarch nor his
successor, Ninken, seems to have devoted any special attention to
Korean affairs.

Nothing notable took place until 509, when Keitai was on the throne.
In that year, a section of the Kudara people, who, in 477, had been
driven from their country by the Koma invaders and had taken refuge
within the Japanese dominion of Mimana, were restored to their homes
with Japanese co-operation and with renewal of the friendly relations
which had long