Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: What caused The Battle of Kyongju?
The Battle of Kyongju was an engagement between United Nations (UN) and North Korean (NK) forces early in the Korean War from August 31 to September 15, 1950, in the vicinity of Kyongju in South Korea. It was a part of the Battle of Pusan Perimeter, and was one of several large engagements fought simultaneously. The battle ended in a victory for the United Nations after large numbers of United States (US) and Republic of Korea (ROK) troops repelled a strong North Korean attack.
On 27 April, a summit took place between Moon and Kim in the South Korean zone of the Joint Security Area. It was the first time since the Korean War that a North Korean leader had entered South Korean territory. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korea's President Moon Jae-in met at the line that divides Korea. The summit ended with both countries pledging to work towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. They also vowed to declare an official end to the Korean War within a year. As part of the Panmunjom Declaration which was signed by leaders of both countries, both sides also called for the end of longstanding military activities in the region of the Korean border and a reunification of Korea. In 2018, a majority of South Koreans approved the new relationship. Also, the leaders agreed to work together to connect and modernise their railways.
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When the North Korean Army crossed into South Korea on 25 June 1950, they advanced for the capital Seoul, which fell in less than a week.
In October 22, 2,000 rebels were killed in the consequent Battle of Jajak Pass, the largest battle in Gangwon Province before the Korean War. The rebels lacked guns, and they used birch branches as weapons. They also lacked pots, and cooked rice over cattle hide. Because of the narrowness of the pass, the rebels were crowded, and it was easy for Maeng's troops to fire into the camp and kill rebels. Maeng himself reports that "it was impossible to see how many died", but descendants have given an estimate of 1,800~2,000. Descendants also report that the battle continued for three or four days. The Seonang Pass was renamed Jajak Pass, because the blood made a 'Jajak' sound as it rolled down the pass.
Japan tried to suppress Korean traditions and culture and ran the economy primarily for its own benefit. Korean resistance groups known as Dongnipgun (Liberation Army) operated along the Sino-Korean border, fighting guerrilla warfare against Japanese forces. Some of them took part in allied action in China and parts of South East Asia. One of the guerrilla leaders was the communist Kim Il-sung, who later became the first leader of North Korea.
Under the leadership of Kim Il-sung, the Korean People's Army attacked from the north on 25 June 1950, starting the Korean War. According to Kim Mansik, who was a military police superior officer, President Syngman Rhee ordered the execution of people related to either the Bodo League or the South Korean Workers Party on 27 June 1950. The first massacre was started one day later in Hoengseong, Gangwon-do on 28 June. Retreating South Korean forces and anti-communist groups executed the alleged communist prisoners, along with many of the Bodo League members. The executions were performed without any trials or sentencing. Kim Tae Sun, the chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police, admitted to personally executing at least 12 "communists and suspected communists" after the outbreak of the war. When Seoul was recaptured in late September 1950, an estimated 30,000 South Koreans were summarily deemed collaborators with the North Koreans and shot by ROK forces. At least one US lieutenant colonel is known to have approved the executions, when he told a South Korean colonel that he could kill a large number of prisoners in Busan if the North Korean troops approached. A mass execution of 3,400 South Koreans did indeed take place near Busan that summer.
From the outbreak of the Korean War and the invasion of South Korea (also known as the Republic of Korea) by the North, the North Korean People's Army had enjoyed superiority in both manpower and equipment over both the Republic of Korea Armed Forces and the United Nations forces dispatched to South Korea to prevent it from collapsing. The North Korean strategy was to aggressively pursue UN and South Korean forces on all avenues of approach south and to engage them aggressively, attacking from the front and initiating a double envelopment of both flanks of the unit, which allowed the North Koreans to surround and cut off the opposing force, which would then be forced to retreat in disarray, often leaving behind much of its equipment. From their initial June 25 offensive to fights in July and early August, the North Koreans used this strategy to effectively defeat any UN force and push it south. However, when the UN forces, under the Eighth United States Army, established the Pusan Perimeter in August, the UN troops held a continuous line along the peninsula which North Korean troops could not flank, and their advantages in numbers decreased daily as the superior UN logistical system brought in more troops and supplies to the UN army.
The Battle of Jiangling was fought by the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei against Cao Cao during the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. The battle was an integral part of the Red Cliffs campaign, and was fought immediately after the Battle of Yiling in 208, and the preceding engagement at Wulin (烏林; in present-day Honghu, Hubei) on land and the marine Battle of Red Cliffs where Cao Cao's navy was destroyed. Note that the battle at Wulin was a byproduct of the Battle of Red Cliffs, and they were not the same battle.
Facing the NK 12th Division was the ROK Capital Division. At 04:00 August 27, a North Korean attack overran one company of the ROK 17th Regiment, Capital Division, north of Kigye. This caused the whole regiment to buckle and retreat. Then the ROK 18th Regiment to the east fell back because of its exposed flank. The ROK 17th Regiment lost the town of Kigye in pulling back, and the entire Capital Division fell back to the south side of the Kigye valley.
The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed. The agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no peace treaty was ever signed, and according to some sources the two Koreas are technically still at war, engaged in a frozen conflict. In April 2018, the leaders of North and South Korea met at the demilitarized zone and agreed to work towards a treaty to formally end the Korean War.
While this action was in progress near Yonil Airfield, the week-long battle for Hill 300 north of Kyongju came to an end. A regiment of the ROK 3rd Division captured the hill on September 11. In midafternoon the 3rd Battalion, US 19th Infantry, relieved the South Korean troops there. Scattered over Hill 300 lay 257 counted North Korean dead and great quantities of abandoned equipment and weapons, some of it American. In this fighting for Hill 300, the US 3rd Battalion, 19th Infantry, 37 men killed.
As a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea had been split into two sovereign states. Both governments of the two new Korean states claimed to be the sole legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither accepted the border as permanent. A socialist state was established in the north under the communist leadership of Kim Il Sung and a capitalist state in the south under the anti-communist leadership of Syngman Rhee. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union and China—moved into the south on 25 June 1950. The United Nations Security Council authorized the formation and dispatch of UN forces to Korea to repel what was recognized as a North Korean invasion. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel.
Kim Il-sung, later to become leader of North Korea, was a high-rank officer in this army, and attained a distinction that he invaded China-Korea border and attacked Japanese police station in Bochonbo 1939. It was widely reported by Korean presses such as Donga Ilbo and he became famous in Korea as the most prominent leader of the anti-Japanese movement. After the war, some of the Korean nationals in this army became the first generation of the leaders of North Korea. Besides Kim Il-sung, An Gil, Kim Chaek, Choe Yong-gon and Kang Kon were also Korean high-rank officers of NAJUA, later assumed high positions in North Korea.
In China, the Jin dynasty, which had united the nation prior in 280, began to quickly face troubles by the start of the century due to political infighting, which led to the opportunistic insurrections of the northern barbarian tribes (starting the Sixteen Kingdoms period), which quickly overwhelmed the empire, forcing the Jin court to retreat and entrench itself in the south past the Yangtze river, starting what is known as the Eastern Jin dynasty around 317. 
Towards the end of the century, Emperor of the Former Qin, Fu Jiān, united the north under his banner, and planned to conquer the Jin dynasty in the south, so as to finally reunite the land, but was decisively defeated at the Battle of Fei River in 383, causing massive unrest and civil war in his empire, thereby leading to the fall of the Former Qin, and the continued existence of the Eastern Jin dynasty.
The war demonstrated the failure of the Qing Dynasty's attempts to modernize its military and fend off threats to its sovereignty, especially when compared with Japan's successful Meiji Restoration. For the first time, regional dominance in East Asia shifted from China to Japan; the prestige of the Qing Dynasty, along with the classical tradition in China, suffered a major blow. The humiliating loss of Korea as a tributary state sparked an unprecedented public outcry. Within China, the defeat was a catalyst for a series of political upheavals led by Sun Yat-sen and Kang Youwei, culminating in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution.
In the 13th century, the Mongol leader Genghis Khan, once a vassal of the Jurchens, rose up against the Jin dynasty. In the ensuing Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty, the nomadic invaders avoided direct attacks on the Jin fortifications. Instead, when they could, the Mongols simply rode around the walls; an effective example of this tactic is in 1211, when they circumvented the substantial fortress in Zhangjiakou and inflicted a terrible defeat upon the Jin armies at the Battle of Yehuling. The Mongols also took advantage of lingering Liao resentment against the Jin; the Khitan defenders of the garrisons along the Jin walls, such as those in Gubeikou, often preferred to surrender to the Mongols rather than fight them. The only major engagement of note along the main Great Wall line was at the heavily defended Juyong Pass: instead of laying siege, the Mongol general Jebe lured the defenders out into an ambush and charged in through the opened gates. In 1215, Genghis Khan besieged, captured, and sacked the Jin capital of Yanjing (modern-day Beijing). The Jin dynasty eventually collapsed following the siege of Caizhou in 1234. Western Xia had already fallen in 1227, and the Southern Song resisted the Mongols until 1279.
At the end of World War II, American forces accepted Imperial Japan's surrender in southern Korea, and Soviet forces accepted the surrender of the Japanese in northern Korea. Talks to agree upon a unity government for Korea failed and in 1948, two separate Korean states were created: the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). The United States established diplomatic relations with the new South Korean government, but did not recognize North Korea. Other countries, like the Soviet Union, recognized the Pyongyang government in North Korea, but did not initially establish relations with the South Korean government in Seoul.
The Korean War started with the North Korean army's surprise attack on Sunday, June 25, 1950. The infant ROK Navy confronted threats from the stronger North Korean navy: "Perhaps the most aggressive and effective, if smallest, member of the South Korean armed services during the first year of the Korean War was the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN). At the outset of the conflict, the 6,956-man ROKN, with [33] naval vessels of various types, was outnumbered by the 13,700 men and 110 naval vessels of the North Korean navy." With its UN allies, dominated by US forces, the ROK Navy was able to gain control in the seas surrounding the country; the ROK Navy secured the seas south of the 38th parallel. After the Incheon landing, the ROK Navy proceeded to take control of the entire seas surrounding the Korean peninsula. When UN troops withdrew from the north, due to the entry of Chinese troops, the ROK Navy conducted evacuation operations for the UN troops and Korean refugees with the UN allies. On July 27, 1953, the three-year-long war was brought to an end when an armistice agreement was signed. During the war, Australia, Canada, Colombia, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States contributed naval vessels as UN allies; Denmark sent the hospital ship "Jutlandia".
After over 50 years of military tension, the aging President Choi Kim of North Korea began to embrace the "Sunshine Policy" of South Korea, reviving hopes of peaceful reunification; however, the North Korean military became disgruntled with the turn of events, fearing a dramatic loss of their power. Their leader, the brilliant and ruthless Choi Song, believed that his father, President Kim, was losing sight of "North Korea's true destiny." Song led an army of insurgents into a ceremony celebrating a road map to the reunification of Korea. Both North and South Korean political leaders were shot and killed, and Song himself shot his father dead without hesitation.
The Commission verified over 14,000 civilians were killed in the Jeju uprising (1948–49) that involved South Korean military and paramilitary units against pro-North Korean guerrillas on the island of Jeju southwest of tip of the peninsula. Although most of the fighting subsided by 1949, it continued until 1950. The Commission estimates 86% of the civilians were killed by South Korean forces. The Americans on the island documented the events, but never intervened.
By 1200 on September 4, North Korean units had established roadblocks along the Kyongju-An'gang-ni road within of Kyongju. A gap existed between the ROK 3rd and Capital Divisions in the P'ohang-dong area. But the big break in the United Nations line was in the high mountain mass west of the Hyongsan valley and southwest of An'gang-ni. In this area northwest of Kyongju there was an gap between the Capital Division and the ROK 8th Division to the west. From that direction the North Koreans posed a threat to the railroad and the road net running south through the Kyongju corridor to Pusan. Faced with this big gap on his left flank, Coulter put the US 21st Infantry in the broad valley and on its bordering hills northwest of Kyongju to block any approach from that direction.
Holding a line north of P'ohang-dong, An'gang-ni, and Kyongju, the so-called "Kyongju corridor," the Republic of Korea Army I Corps was unexpectedly hit with an attack by the North Korean People's Army's II Corps, part of the wider Great Naktong Offensive. The South Korean troops, already demoralized and struggling to maintain a strong defensive line, were easily pushed back from their positions. US Army units were called in to assist the South Koreans repel the attack.
The expected North Korean attack on Kyongju, however, never came. The North Koreans turned east, crossed the highway north of the town, and headed toward Yonil Airfield. The next day the US Air Force, attacking North Korean gun positions north of Kyongju along the road, found many targets in the Kigye-Kyongju-P'ohang-dong triangle as they caught the North Koreans advancing in the open.
At 12:30 Eighth Army redesignated Task Force Jackson as Task Force Church, and at 13:00 Coulter departed Kyongju for Taegu to resume his planning duties. Church was now in command on the eastern front. That afternoon, September 7, Church canceled Coulter's order for the 21st Infantry to attack into the mountains. He felt it was a useless dispersion of troops and he wanted the regiment concentrated near Kyongju. Church made still another change in the disposition of the task force. On the 8th he moved its command post from Kyongju to the vicinity of Choyang-ni, south. He believed the command post could be more easily defended there in the open if attacked than in a town, and that traffic congestion near it would be less.