to which one hundred of the opposing politicians of the nation were invited. Yeon Gaesomun ambushed and killed all one hundred politicians present, and then proceeded to the palace and murdered King Yeongnyu. According to traditional Chinese and Korean sources, Yeon Gaesomun's men dismembered the king's corpse and discarded it without proper ceremony. After placing King Bojang (),a nephew of King Yeongnyu, on the Goguryeo throne, Yeon Gaesomun appointed himself the Dae Magniji (; generalissimo) and assumed absolute de facto control over Goguryeo affairs of state until his death around 666. Yeon Gaesomun's coup d'état came as the culmination of a lengthy power struggle between those in the government who favored appeasement toward Tang China and those who advocated military confrontation; Yeon Gaesomun belonged to the hard-liners. Traditional Chinese and Korean historians assumed that Yeon Gaseomun's motive was simply his thirst for power, but many modern Korean historians assert that his motive was to make Goguryeo assume a tougher stance against Tang China, as opposed to King Yeongnyu who submitted to Tang for a peaceful diplomatic relationship. Yeon Gaesomun's role in the murder of King Yeongnyu was taken as the primary pretext for the failed Tang invasion of 645. Wars with China The series of wars between Goguryeo and Tang China comprise some of the most important events in the ancient history of Northeast Asia, leading to the Tang–Silla alliance, the ultimate demise of powerful Goguryeo, and the unification of the Korean Peninsula under Silla control. Yeon Gaesomun was a central protagonist in this series of conflicts, as well as its primary cause. At the outset of his rule, Yeon Gaesomun took a brief conciliatory stance toward Tang China. For instance, he supported Taoism at the expense of Buddhism, and to this effect in 643, sent emissaries to the Tang court requesting Taoist sages, eight of whom were brought to Goguryeo. This gesture is considered by some historians as an effort to pacify Tang and buy time to prepare for the Tang invasion Yeon thought inevitable given his ambitions to annex Silla. Relations with Tang deteriorated when Goguryeo launched new invasions of Silla. In 645, the first conflict of the Goguryeo–Tang War began and Emperor Taizong's noted military acumen enabled him to conquer a number of major Goguryeo border fortresses. Eventually, however, Emperor Taizong's invasion was met with two major setbacks. First, his main army was stymied and bogged down