ove 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. The Empress Saimei decided that Kudara must be succoured.
Living in Japan at that time was Phung-chang,* a younger brother of
the deposed King of Kudara. It was resolved that he should be sent to
the peninsula accompanied by a sufficient force to place him on the
throne. But Saimei died before the necessary preparations were
completed, and the task of carrying out a design which had already
received his endorsement devolved upon Prince Naka, the great
reformer. A fleet of 170 ships carrying an army of thirty-seven
thousand men escorted Phung-chang from Tsukushi, and the kingdom of
Kudara was restored. But the conclusive battle had still to be
fought. It took place in September, 662, at Paik-chhon-ku (Ung-jin),
between the Chinese under Liu Jen-kuei, a Tang general, and the
Japanese under Atsumi no Hirafu. The forces were about equal on each
side, and it was the first signal trial of strength between Chinese
and Japanese. No particulars have been handed down by history.
Nothing is known except that the Japanese squadron drove straight
ahead, and that the Chinese attacked from both flanks. The result was
a crushing defeat for the Japanese. They were shattered beyond the
power of rallying, and only a remnant found its way back to Tsukushi.
Kudara and Koma fell, and Japan lost her last footing in a region
where her prestige had stood so high for centuries.

*He was a hostage. The constant residence of Korean hostages in Japan
speaks eloquently of the relations existing between the two
countries. There were no Japanese hostages in Korea.

Shiragi continued during more than a hundred years to maintain a
semblance of deferential intercourse, but her conduct became
ultimately so unruly that, in the reign of Nimmyo (834-850), her
people were prohibited from visiting Japan. From Kudara, however,
after its overthrow by China, there migrated almost continuously for
some time a number of inhabitants who became naturalized in Japan.
They were distributed chiefly in the provinces of Omi and Musashi,
Son-Kwang, a brother of the former King of Kudara, being required to
live in Naniwa (Osaka) for the purpose of controlling them. Koma,
also, when it fell into Chinese h