Bumin, the Turkish khagan, dies shortly after…

King Seong of Baekje attacks the kingdoms of Goguryeo and Silla.

However, under a secret agreement, Silla troops attack the exhausted Baekje army and take possession of the entire Han River valley.

Justinian assembles a vast army early in the 550s, composed not only of Romans but also of barbarians, including Lombards, Heruli, and Gepids, as well as Persian deserters.

The emperor intervenes repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, in theological quarrels to reconcile eastern Monophysites and western Catholics.

In 553, he convokes the Second Council, or Synod, of Constantinople, the fifth ecumenical council, to condemn the Nestorian writings called the "Three Chapters."

The council, dominated by the emperor, proscribes Nestorianism and reconfirms the doctrine that Christ's two natures, one human and one divine, are perfectly united in one person.

Pope Vigilius at first defends the “Three Chapters,” but later accepts the council's ruling.

The Council condemns “Origenism,” the teachings of influential third-century theologian and mystic Origen; Justinian issues a decree banning the doctrine of reincarnation and mandating the removal from religious documents of all veiled references to preexistence.

The Council also condemns the teachings of Greek theologians Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ebas of Edessa; and reverses many decisions made by the fourth ecumenical council.

This causes further schisms and heresies of monoenergism and monothelitism.

The Dalmatian port of Zadar has become poor under the rule of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, with many civic buildings turning into ruins due to its advanced age.

It had been hit about the same time (sixth century) by an earthquake, which had destroyed entire complexes of monumental Roman architecture, whose parts would later serve as material for building houses.

This had caused a loss of population and created demographic changes in the city, then gradually repopulated by the inhabitants from its hinterland.

Six decades of Gothic rule have however saved those old Roman Municipal institutions that were still in function, while religious life in Dalmatia has even intensified in the last years, so that there is a need for the foundation of additional bishoprics.

Zadar in 553 passes to the control of the Empire.

Ostrogothic power in Italy has been eliminated, and most of the remaining Ostrogoths go back north and resettle in south Austria.

However, two Frankish-Alemanni dukes; the brothers Lothair and Buccelin (or Leutharis and Butilinus), cross the Alps from Germany with a force of seventy-five thousand men, mostly Frankish infantry.

In the Po Valley, they win an easy victory over a much smaller imperial force at Parma, and are joined by remnants of the Gothic armies, bringing the total strength of the invaders to about ninety thousand men.

Narses, gathering his forces as quickly as possible, marches north to harass the Franks, but is not strong enough to engage them in battle.

The brothers divide their forces in Samnium (southern Italy).

Lothair goes down the east coast, then returns to the north, to winter in the Po Valley.

Buccelin follows the west coast to the very toe of the boot into Calabria, where he spends the winter—his army being seriously wasted by attrition and disease.

The imperial force in Spain, after intervening in the quarrel among the Visigothic rulers in 552, overstays the invitation extended them, seizing the opportunity to occupy on a more permanent basis certain towns in the Iberian Peninsula’s southeastern corner, which retains its old Roman name of Hispania Baetica.

Justinian hopes to use these as a spearhead to his envisaged "Reconquest" of the Roman far west.

Imperial forces under Liberius seize Granada and occupy the old province of Baetica.

Cynric (who is either the son or grandson of Saxon prince Cerdic of Wessex) succeeds to the Wessex kingship in 554.

Cerdic is today regarded as the ancestor of all subsequent Kings of Wessex.

Cynric is said to have captured the fort at Old Sarum in this year after repulsing an attack by the Britons across the Fosse Way, a Roman road that links Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) in southwest England to Lincoln (Lindum Colonia) in Lincolnshire, via Ilchester (Lindinis), Bath (Aquae Sulis), Cirencester (Corinium) and Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum).

Buccelin marches north in the spring of 554, by which time the Frankish army, infected by dysentery, has been reduced to about thirty thousand men.

The imperial army, with eighteen thousand men (including a contingent of Goths under Aligern), marches south to meet them at Casilinum on the banks of the River Volturno.

Narses sends a cavalry force under Chanaranges to destroy the supply wagons of the Franks.

Outmaneuvering Buccelin, he chooses a disposition similar to that at Taginae.

After a frontal assault on the Imperial center, the Franks and the Alamanni are annihilated.

Butelinus and most of his men perish, while Roman casualties are small.

Agathias gives the impossibly low number of eighty dead Romans, while claiming that only five barbarians survived.

Whatever the true numbers, it is a magnificent victory for Narses, and signals the final triumph of the Empire in Italy.

Meanwhile, in the north, Lothair and his army are struck by an epidemic.

The Western Wei official Yuwen Renshu (probably Yuwen Tai's relative but the relationship is unclear), while on a diplomatic mission to Liang (now with Xiao Yi as its undisputed emperor—as Emperor Yuan) in spring 554, is slighted by Emperor Yuan, who treats Northern Qi's ambassador with far greater respect.

Emperor Yuan then further aggravated the situation by sending an impolite letter to Yuwen Tai demanding that the borders be redrawn in accordance with old borders.

Yuwen made the comment, "Xiao Yi is the type of person that, as said in proverbs, 'One who has been abandoned by heaven cannot be revived by anyone else.'"

Yuwen Tai therefore began to prepare attacking Emperor Yuan at his headquarters of Jiangling (in modern Jingzhou, Hubei), as Emperor Yuan had made Jiangling his capital and declined to move back to the old capital Jiankang.

The Western Wei general Ma Bofu, formerly a Liang general, secretly reveals the attack plans to Emperor Yuan, but Emperor Yuan does not believe Ma and takes minimal precautions.

In winter 554, under Yuwen Tai's orders, Western Wei forces, commanded by Yu Jin, who is assisted by Yuwen Tai's nephew Yuwen Hu and Yang Zhong, launches a major attack on Liang.

Emperor Yuan initially does not take reports of the Western Wei attack seriously, and while he summons his major generals Wang Sengbian and Wang Lin from afar, he himself takes little defensive or evasive actions.

Yu quickly descends on Jiangling and puts it under siege.

Soon, Emperor Yuan surrenders, and Western Wei forces give him to Xiao Cha to be executed.

Western Wei creates Xiao Cha the Emperor of Liang (as Emperor Xuan) and gives him the Jiangling area in exchange for his old domain of Xiangyang area, over which Western Wei takes control directly.

(However, the rest of Liang does not recognize Emperor Xuan, and soon recognizes a rival candidate for the throne supported by Northern Qi, Emperor Yuan's cousin Xiao Yuanming.)

Most of the hundred thousand residents of Jiangling are seized as slaves and distributed to generals and officials., although eventually most of them are released by Yuwen after he is persuaded to do so by one of the captives, the Liang official Yu Jicai.

Gong Di succeeds his brother Fei Di as emperor of Western Wei.

He is deposed by general Yuwen Tai, who will later put him to death.