Editing Yeon Gaesomun (section)

===Overthrow of the throne===
In the winter of 642, [[Yeongnyu of Goguryeo|King Yeongnyu]] was apprehensive about Yeon Gaesomun and plotted with his other officials to kill him. When Yeon Gaesomun discovered the plot, he arranged a lavish banquet to celebrate his rise to the position of Eastern Governor ({{script|Hani|東部大人}}) 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 [[Bojang of Goguryeo|King Bojang]] ({{r.|642–668}}),a nephew of King Yeongnyu, on the [[Goguryeo]] throne, Yeon Gaesomun appointed himself the "Dae Magniji" ({{korean|labels=no|hangul=대막리지|hanja=大莫離支}}; [[generalissimo]]) and assumed absolute [[de facto]] control over [[Goguryeo]] affairs of state until his death around 666.<ref name="Kim">{{cite book|last1=Kim|first1=Jinwung|title=A History of Korea: From "Land of the Morning Calm" to States in Conflict|date=5 November 2012|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0253000781|pages=50–51|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QFPsi3IK8gcC&pg=PA50|access-date=17 July 2016|language=en}}</ref>

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 dynasty|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 dynasty|Tang]] invasion of 645.