Chapter V.
Rebellion quelled.... cannibalism.... anarchy....“faith cure”.... reformation.... Ta-na well.... the Queen restored.... slaves revolt.... the Mongols.... envoy killed.... Kin weakens.... Kitan refugees.... civil strife.... Kitan driven back.... Mongol allies.... Mongols drive Kitans into Koryŭ.... Mongol savages.... Kitan remnant surrenders.... Mongol envoy.... jealousy.... Mongol demands.... rebels’ heads sent to Song-do.... Mongol demands tribute.... brutal envoy.... a new wall.... Japanese pirates.... Mongol envoy killed.... Mongol allies.... driven back.... prime minister duped.... pirates again.... a Korean “Shogun”.... Mongols cross the Yalu.... a Mongol letter.... the Mongols reach Song-do.... leave it untaken.... the “Shogun” flees.... a brave prefect.... Mongol terms.... King surrenders.... Mongol residency.
Cho Wi-jong was a P‘yŭng-yang man with a towering ambition, and he now deemed the time ripe to put the wheels in motion. He therefore drew about him a strong body of troops. All the districts about P‘yŭng-yang joined him excepting Yŭn-ju, which remained loyal to the king. The people of that place were afraid of the rebel but the loyal prefect Hyŭn Tŭk-su forged a letter purporting to be from the royal army en route for P‘yŭng-yang. This gave the people courage to hold out.
Cho and his troops marched toward Song-do and encamped not far to the west of the town. Gen. Yi Eui-bang, having first seized and killed all the P‘yŭng-an officials who happened to be in the capital, marched out against the rebels. At the first attack the seditious force broke and fled. Gen. Yi chased them as far as the Ta-dong River. He crossed that river and lay siege to P‘yŭng-yang; but winter was coming on and he was obliged to retire to Song-do. Cho then made two or three attempts to overthrow the loyal town of Yŭn-ju, but without success.
Gen. Yi was a ruthless man, who had no love of humanity in him, but would kill his best friend if it served his purpose. For this reason Gen. Chöng did not dare to associate with him, but threw up his commission and went into retirement. His son got a priest to dog the footsteps of Gen. Yi and wait for a chance to kill him. This he finally accomplished and Gen. Yi and many of his relatives were killed; and the queen, who was his daughter, was driven away.
As Cho Wi-jong, the P‘yŭng-yang traitor, was gradually losing power he desired to get help from the Kin emperor. For this purpose he sent two envoys, but one of them killed the other on the way and them fled to Song-do. Cho sent another, but him the Kin emperor seized and sent a prisoner to the Koryŭ capital. In the spring the royal forces besieged Cho in P‘yŭng-yang again and famine within the walls became so great that men ate each other. Many of the towns-people came out by stealth and as they were well received by the besieging force, well-nigh all the civilians in the city came over the walls by night. When the city fell, Cho was killed and his wife and children were sent to Song-do where they were hung in the center of the city.
The rebel forces were scattered but reunited in various places and terrorized the whole north, so that envoys to the Kin court had to go a round-about way to avoid them. The whole country in fact was in a state of anarchy. In the south whole sections of the country were disaffected toward the government and bands of men roamed the country. There was a rising also in Whang-hă Province. In P‘yŭng-yang the people rose and drove out the governor. The king was forced to begin the correction of abuses. He sent all about gathering information as to how the people were governed and as a consequence eight hundred officials were cashiered. But the attempt at renovation came too late. In the west the bands of robbers looted right and left and could not be apprehended. The capital itself swarmed with thieves. The ancestral temple itself was robbed of its utensils. But all this time the king kept up a round of carousals and debaucheries at which he himself played the buffoon, and danced for the delectation of his guests, and that too at a monastery. A sacred place truly!
In the twelfth year of the reign, 1182, we find an interesting application of what goes in these days under the name of “faith cure.” A priest claimed to be able to cure any disease. Being called before the king he said, “If anyone drinks water in which I have washed my hands he will be immediately cured.” He further explained “After drinking the water, pray earnestly to Buddha. Then rise and say ‘I am cured’, and if you really believe you are cured, you will be so.” Crowds of people applied to him for treatment. He seduced many of the women who came to him.
Gen. Yi Eui-mun was now court favorite and he usurped all the leading offices and acted as pander-in-general to the King by seeking out and forcibly carrying to the palace young and handsome girls. This seemed intolerable to such loyal men as Gen. Ch‘oe Chung-heun, and he, in company with his brother, surrounded the palace, killed Yi Eui-mun and many others of his ilk, chased away many illegitimate sons of the king, who had become monks, and would not let them enter the palace again. This all happened in 1196, and two years later the reformer continued the good work by deposing the old and indolent king, banishing the crown prince to Kang-wha and putting the king’s brother Mun on the throne. His posthumous title is Sin-jong. The banishing of the crown prince and his wife was effected in a very heartless manner. They were ordered out of the palace at a moment’s notice and, coming forth entirely unprepared for the journey, were mounted on horses in a cold rain and hurried away to Kang-wha. A terrible storm raged the day the King was deposed, as if in sympathy with the throes through[through] the country was passing.
There was a saying current among the people which shows at once how superstitious[superstitious] they were and to what an extent the eunuchs were wont to abuse their power. They said “If the King uses water from the Ta-nă Wall many eunuchs will arise and will cause the government to be administered badly;” so the well was filled up. Another instance shows what a terrible temptation there was for the people to abuse their power. This same reformer Ch’oe[Ch’oe] Chung-heun, though himself a man of perfect uprightness, had a brother who now took advantage of his position to force the king to take his daughter as queen. To do this the real queen had to be banished. As it happened, the king was deeply attached to her, but he was in no position to refuse to do the bidding of the powerful courtier. After a tearful parting she went into exile. This was as yet unknown to the reformer, but when he learned of it his indignation was deep and fierce. Cloaking his feelings, he called his brother to a feast and there reminded him that they were not of a high enough family to furnish a queen, and he charged him to give up the attempt. The next day, the villain changed his mind again. His mother expostulated with him and he felled her to the floor. Gen. Ch‘oe was told of this and, surrounding himself with a strong body-guard, he proceeded to the palace gate. When his niece was brought in her chair and was about to enter to become queen, the faithful old general disputed the passage and a fight ensued between his men and his brother’s. The former were successful and the wretch betook himself to flight, but was pursued, taken and killed by the general himself. The rightful queen was restored to her station.
The six years of this king’s reign were one long scene of turmoil and strife. In the first place the slaves revolted. They said “The high men are not made so by the decree of heaven. Great men are those who do well. Let us fight for our rights; Gen. Ch‘oe is from as low a grade as ourselves. Let us become high men too.” They rendezvoused at Heung-guk monastery and decided as a preliminary measure to demand from their masters the deeds of themselves (for slaves as well as houses were deeded property) and to burn them. They were betrayed to Gen. Ch‘oe who trapped a hundred of them, tied stones about their necks and drowned them in the river. The south was overrun by marauding parties whom the king bought off by gifts of food, clothes and land. In Chin-ju the governor’s servants locked him in his private dungeon, gathered a band of men and put to death all who would not join their standard. It is said that 6,400 men were killed because of refusal to join them. The same scenes were enacted in various places, notably in Quelpart and Kong-ju.
In the midst of these scenes the king died and was succeeded in 1205 by his son Tok, posthumous title Heui-jong.
We have now arrived at the threshold of events which were destined to make Asia one great battle-field and to cause the sovereigns of Europe to tremble on their thrones.
The Mongols lived north of Yŭ-jin and were in a sense connected with them. Their first great chief was Ya-sok-hă (Yusuka) who first led the revolt which separated the Mongol power from the Yŭ-jin. He together with Keui-ak-on conquered forty of the northern tribes in quick succession and brought them all under his flag. His son’s name was Chŭl-mok-jin, the great Genghis Khan. It was now in the second year of Heui-jong, in 1206, that the great Genghis proclaimed himself emperor and named his empire Mong.
Meanwhile Ch‘oe Chung-heun was not proof against the seductions of ambition and power, and we next find him seizing the people’s houses and building himself a magnificent residence adjoining the palace. People said of him that he buried a boy or a girl under each corner post.
When the spring of 1212 opened, an envoy was sent to the Kin court but was intercepted by Mongol videttes who had by this time worked their way southward to a point that commanded the road between Koryŭ and Kin. The Kin people recovered the body and sent it back to Koryŭ.
Gen. Ch‘oe had acquired so much power that he was in reality the ruler of the land, holding much the same position that the Shogun of Japan is said to have occupied. He may not inappropriately be styled the Shogun of Koryŭ. For this reason the king desired to get him out of the way. To this end he put upon his track a number of monks, but as they began by attacking his servant he quietly slipped into a chest and they could not find him. His body-guard became aware of his predicament and forced the palace gates, killing right left; and they would have killed the king had not the wily old general stepped out of his hiding place and prevented it. The latter banished the king to Kang-wha and the crown prince to Chemulpo and set upon the throne one Chong, whose posthumous title is Kang-jong.
The only event recorded of this reign is the arrival of an envoy from the Kin court, who wanted to enter the palace by the central or royal gate. He insisted upon it until he was asked the question “If you enter by the royal gate, by what gate would your master enter should he come here?” This silenced him.
Kang-jong was succeeded in 1214 by his son Chin, posthumous title Kang-jang. This was destined to be the longest and by far the most eventful[eventful] reign of the dynasty for it lasted forty-five years and witnessed the great Mongol invasion.
The Kin power was now trembling under the Mongol onslaught and envoys came demanding aid from Koryŭ in the shape of rice and horses. The king ostensibly refused but allowed the envoys to purchase rice and carry it away with them.
Again a dark cloud hung over Koryŭ’s northern border. It was not the Mongols as yet, but the remnant of the Kitan forces who were unable to withstand the Mongols and so had fled south into Koryŭ territory. At first the Koryŭ forces were able to keep them in check but as they came in ever increasing numbers they broke down all opposition and were soon ravaging Whang-hă Province, making P‘yŭng-yang their headquarters. The lack of Koryŭ soldiers was so evident that men of all classes, even the monks, became soldiers. It was of no avail. They were cut down like stubble and Whang-ju fell into Kitan hands. The enemy was soon only eighty li from the capital. Consternation reigned in the city and the people all procured swords or other weapons and manned the walls.
To this outward danger was added the terror of civil strife for the priests took this inopportune moment to attack the old general, Ch‘oe, who still ruled with a high hand. He turned on them however and cut down three hundred. He then instituted an inquisition and as a result 800 more were killed.
Such then was the desperate position of Koryŭ; a powerful enemy at her door, the south rife with rebellion, and in the capital itself “mountains of dead and rivers of blood.” Victorious Kitan came sweeping down on Song-do, but for some reason, perhaps because they had heard that the town was well defended, they made a detour, appearing next on the banks of the Im-jin River half way between Song-do and the present capital. There they suffered defeat at the hands of the Koryŭ forces as they did also later at the site of the present capital. In view of these defeats the Kitan army retired to Tă-băk San. Now another cause of anxiety appeared in the shape of the Yŭ-jin allies of the Mongols who crossed the Yalu and took Eui-ju. But Koryŭ, wide awake to the danger, threw upon them a well equipped force which destroyed 500 of them, captured many more and drove the remaining 300 across the river. The king now built a royal residence at Pă-gak San to the east of Song-do, for he had been told that by so doing he would be able to hold the north in check.
Myŭn Ku-ha of east Yŭ-jin, being defeated by the Mongols, came in his flight towards the Yalu, but the Koryŭ general, Chŭng Kong-su, caught him and sent him safely to the Mongol headquarters. This pleased the Mongols hugely and they said “We must make a treaty of friendship.” We must remember that the Mongols were at war with Kitan and had driven her army across into Koryŭ, but at first did not pursue them. Now, however, an army of 10,000 men under Generals T‘ap Chin and Ch‘al Cha, were sent to complete the destruction of the Kitan power. They were joined by Yŭ-jin allies to the number of 20,000 men under Gen. Wan-an Cha-yŭn. As these allies were advancing against the doomed army of Kitan, the remnant of which, 50,000 strong, was massed at Kang-dong, a great snowstorm came on and provisions ran low. Koryŭ was asked to supply the deficiency which she did to the extent of 1,000 bags of rice. This still more helped her into the good graces of the Mongols. But the records state that the Mongols were so little beyond the condition of the savage that there could be little real friendship between them and the people of Koryŭ. The latter showed it too plainly and the Mongols of course resented it.
In this army that was marching to the annihilation of Kitan there was a contingent of Koryŭ forces under Gen. Kim Ch‘ui-ryo who is described as being a giant in size with a beard that reached his knees. He was a favorite with the Mongol generals and was treated handsomely by them.
The siege[siege] of Kang-dong was prosecuted vigorously and soon the greatest distress prevailed within the walls. The leader finally gave up hope and hanged himself, and the 50,000 men came out and surrendered. Gen. T‘ap reviewed them, took off the heads of a hundred of the leaders and released the remainder. The Mongol leader wished to make a visit to Song-do to see the king but he could not leave his army, so he sent an envoy instead. He gave the Koryŭ generals rich presents and released 700 Koryŭ captives that had been previously taken. Many Kitan captives were put into the hands of the Koryŭ generals as a result of the decisive termination of the war against Kitan and many of the heretofore inaccessible parts of the north were opened up, and they were called the “Kitan District.”
Ere long the Mongol envoy approached Song-do and the king sent out a messenger to meet him, but this did not satisfy him, for he exclaimed “Why did not the king come out to meet me?” It took some persuasion to induce him not to turn back. When he had audience with the king he wore the heavy fur clothing of his native country with a fur head-dress, and carried a sword and a bow. Approaching the king he seized his hand and showed him the letter from the Mongol emperor, Genghis Khan. The king turned pale and was exceedingly embarrassed at this familiarity, and the officials asked each other how the presence of this barbarian could be endured. They induced him to retire and assume Koryŭ garments, after which he reappeared and the king presented him with gifts of gold, silver, silk and linen.
Gen. Cho Ch‘ung accompanied the retiring Mongol and Yŭ-jin allies as far as the Yalu where they bade him an affectionate adieu and declared that he was a man of whom Koryŭ should be proud. The Mongol general, Hap Chin, left forty men at Eui-ju to learn the Koryŭ language and told them to stay there till he returned. Gen. Cho then returned to P‘yŭng-yang where he was lionized and fêted. The old man Ch‘oe Chung-heun feared that Gen. Cho would attempt to throw him down from his high position and thought it would be better to have him near by, where he could watch him; so he forged a letter purporting to be from the king, ordering him to come down to the capital. He obeyed.
It seemed at this time that the relations of Koryŭ and the Mongols would remain friendly, but if Koryŭ thought this she was destined to be rudely awakened. The Mongol and Yŭ-jin allies sent to Myŭng-sŭng and said “Koryŭ must send an envoy and do obeisance each year.” This was said in so offensive a way that it seemed to be an attempt to provoke war. We are not told what answer was given but it sufficed for the time to secure peace.
The great Ch‘oe Chung-heun who had carried things with such a high hand now fell ill and died. This caused more commotion than the death of several kings. He was buried with royal honors. He left many sons, of whom U and Hyang were first and second. Hyang was a bold and powerful man, and before the father died he warned U against him. U succeeded to his father’s position which, as we have seen, corresponded closely with that of the Shogun of Japan.
A serious rebellion broke out in the north under two leaders, Han Sun and Ta Chi, the cause being the illegal exactions of the prefects. When the king found that it could not be put down by peaceful means he sent Gen. Kim Ch‘ui-ro to put it down by force. The east Yŭ-jin leader, Myŭn Ku-ha, at first sided with the rebels but later changed his mind, invited Han Sun and Ta Chi to a feast, got them intoxicated, assassinated them, put their heads in a box and sent it to the king, thereby earning the good will of the latter. The king then reformed the abuses in the rebellious section and peace was at last secured.
The Mongols were not to be content with an empty friendship, and in 1221 they sent a demand for revenue, consisting of 10,000 pounds of cotton, 3,000 rolls of fine silk, 2,000 pieces of gauze, 100,000 sheets of paper of the largest size. The envoy who brought this extraordinary[extraordinary] letter was provided commodious quarters and excellent food but he expressed his dissatisfaction at everything by shooting arrows into the house posts, and by acting in a very boorish manner generally. The only man who could do anything with him was Kim Heui-jo who charged him with killing a man in Eui-ji, and threatened to have him imprisoned. Thus meeting bluster with bluster he made the brutal northerner listen to reason. When the envoy was about to go to an audience with his weapons in hand, this same Kim made him lay them aside. Other Mongol and Yo-jin messengers came and Kim managed them all so well that no trouble arose.
It was becoming apparent that the Mongols were likely at any time to make a descent upon Koryŭ; so, in the following year, 1222, a wall was built near the Yalu river, extending from Eui-ju to Wha-ju. It is said that this was completed in the marvelously short space of forty days, a feat which shows not only how great a power Koryŭ could exert when necessary but how important she deemed it that this wall should be built.
1223 A.D. marks the beginning of that long series of depredations which Japanese freebooters inflicted upon Koryŭ between[between] 1200 and 1400. In this year they landed on the coast of Kyŭng-sang Province and ravaged the district of Keum-ju. With the opening of the next year, a Mongol envoy came modifying the demand for tribute to sea otter skins only. The Kin dynasty was now tottering to its fall but was destined to cling to life for another ten years. This year saw it nearly fall before the Mongol power. Koryŭ therefore discarded the Kin calendar. The friendship between the Mongols and Koryŭ was destined to be rudely broken in the year 1225, and through no fault of the latter except the inability to keep order in her own territory. The Mongol envoy, returning to the north, was set upon by a Koryŭ highwayman and was robbed of the gifts which he was carrying home. Thus all friendly relations were ruptured and another step was taken toward the final catastrophe. This year also witnessed another Japanese raid in the south.
FERRY ACROSS THE HAN.
The Yŭ-jin who had now assumed the Mongol clothes, and were in reality an integral part of the Mongol power, made a descent upon Koryŭ in 1226 in the vicinity of Eui-ju. The prefect deemed it too pressing a matter to wait till word could be received from Song-do, so he sent a thousand men immediately against the raiders and drove them back. The king forgave the irregularity but refused to reward him.
Ch‘oé U who, as we know, was the prime minister, was duped by a diviner into believing that he was to become king some day, and he foolishly divulged the secret to a certain Kim, and soon it became common property. As punishment for this, as well as to get himself out of trouble, Ch‘oe U had both Kim and the diviner drowned.
The depredations of the Japanese were without the cognizance of the Japanese government and were against its wish. This appears from the fact that when in 1227 an envoy, Pak In, was sent to Japan to remonstrate against them, the government of that country acquiesced and arrested and killed a number of the corsairs.
Both this year and the next Yŭ-jin bands ravaged the northern part of Koryŭ, but at the same time asked that a treaty be concluded. The ink was hardly dry on this before it was broken by the very ones who advocated it.
Ch‘oe U followed in his father’s steps and having established himself in the viceroyship began to abuse the people, stealing houses and lands from them wherewith to build himself a princely mansion, two hundred paces long. In the court of it he had mock battles and the soldiers played at ball. The expense of this was borne by the people, whose faces were already being ground to furnish the regular revenue. His younger brother, Hyang, who long since been had banished, attempted to raise an insurrection in favor of the exiled king; but Ch‘oe U sent a strong force and chased his brother until he was run to earth in a cave among the mountains where he was killed.
It was now the year 1231, the year which saw the outbreak which had been threatening ever since Genghis Khan came to the chieftainship of the Mongol armies. As the spring opened a powerful Mongol army moved southward across the Yalu under the leadership of Sal Ye-t‘ap and took the fortress of Ham-sin near Eui-ju. They followed this up by storming Ch‘ŭl-ju which ended only after the prefect had set fire to his house and destroyed his whole family and he and his associates had cut their own throats.
The king did not intend to submit without a struggle. He sent Generals Pak Sö and Kim Kyöng-sol at the head of a large army to operate against the invaders. They rendezvoused with all their forces at Ku-ju, the four gates of which were strongly barricaded. The Mongols commenced the attack at the south gate. The Koryŭ soldiers made five brilliant sallies and forced the enemy to retire. The honors of this victory fell to Gen. Kim who pursued the enemy some distance and then returned to the town in triumph. The Mongols, who seem to have been independent of any base of supplies and made the country through which they passed supply them, now left this town untaken and the Koryŭ army undefeated in their rear, and marched boldly southward, taking Kwak-ju and Sŭn-ju. From this point the Mongol general Sal Ye-t‘ap sent a letter to the king saying “Let us make peace. We have now taken your country as far as Han-sin and if you do not come to terms with us we will draw reinforcements from Yŭ-jin and crush you.” The messenger who conveyed this very candid letter got only as far as P‘yŭng-ju where he was seized by the people and imprisoned. While waiting for an answer, the invaders tried another attack on Ku-ju but with no better success. Not only so, but they were badly defeated at Au-puk fortress.
The king now reinforced the army in the north and at the same time feasted 30,000 monks at the capital in order to influence the celestial powers to bring about a cessation of war. But at the same time the Mongol forces were reinforced by Yŭ-jin troops and with high spirits crossed the Ta-dong river and swept down to P‘yŭng-ju to wreak their vengeance on that place where even yet the Mongol messenger with the letter for the king was languishing in durance vile. By a night attack they took the place, burned it to the ground, killed the prefect and even destroyed every dog and other domestic animal in the place. Then they advanced toward Song-do and soon appeared beneath its walls. There the Mongol generals P‘o-do, Chŭk-kŭ and Tang-go went into camp. They supplied their army by foraging all through the surrounding country, in which operation thousands of people were killed, their houses destroyed and their goods confiscated, especially all kinds of food. The people in the capital were in the greatest distress. Ch‘oe U, the viceroy, stationed all the best troops about his own house and left the inferior troops to guard the palace.
The Mongol general Sal Ye-t‘ap was now in the north. The king had already sent one messenger to ask for terms of peace and had received the following answer; “I am emperor. If you wish to fight it out then come on and fight. If not then surrender, and be quick about it, too.” The king now sent another messenger on a similar errand. He returned with two Mongol commissioners and three more soon followed. They were immediately admitted to an audience and a conference followed, after which the king sent rich presents to Gen. Sal Ye-t‘ap who seems now to have joined the main army before Song-do, and also to the other generals. What the result of the conference was is, for some reason, not stated in the records, but that it was not entirely satisfactory to the Mongols, or if satisfactory not sufficiently so to make them forego the pleasure of plundering, is seen from their next move, for they left Song-do and went southward to the center of the peninsula, the rich province of Ch‘ung-ch‘ŭng.
The cowardly prime minister showed his colors by sending a man to find a retreat for him on the island of Kang-wha, but the messenger fell into the hands of Mongol foragers.
Gen. Sal Ye-t‘ap had gone north and joined another division of the Mongol army and again he attacked Ku-ju. He made engines of war called ta-p‘o-ch‘a, a sort of catapult, with which to reduce this town, but the magistrate, Pak Sö also made similar instruments which hurled huge stones, and the besiegers were compelled to retire to a distance and take refuge behind various kinds of defenses. The Mongols made three attempts to deceive the prefect by forged letters purporting to be from the king and saying “I have surrendered and therefore you must submit,” but Pak Sö was not to be caught by so simple a trick. The besiegers then tried huge scaling ladders, but these were cut down by the defenders as fast as they were put in place. An aged Mongol general, who made a circuit of the town and marked the splendid state of defense into which the place had been put, declared that he had never seen a place so well defended.
So the little town stood and the great Mongol general was forced to seek other fields for the display of his prowess. He sent a letter to the king finding fault because of the death of the first Mongol messenger[messenger] and modestly suggesting that peace could be secured if he would surrender and give 20,000 horse-loads of clothing, 10,000 pieces of purple silk, 20,000 sea-otter skins, 20,000 horses, 1,000 boys, 1,000 girls and 1,000,000 soldiers, with food, to help conquer Japan. In addition to this the king must go to the Mongol court and do obeisance. These were the terms upon which Koryŭ could secure peace.
With the beginning of the next year, 1232, the king sent two generals bearing a letter of surrender. With it he sent seventy pounds of gold, thirteen pounds of silver, 1,000 coats and a hundred and seventy horses. He moreover stated that the killing of the Mongol messenger was not the work of the Koryŭ government but of a band of insurgents and robbers. The officials had to give their garments in order to make up the number that was sent. Each prefect along the route was charged with the duty of seeing that the Mongols were in no way molested.
But Pak Sö the prefect of Ku-Ju[Ku-Ju] was an obstinate man and would not give up his fortress even when he knew the king had surrendered. It was only after a great deal of argument and expostulation that he at last capitulated. The Koryŭ people wanted to kill him for his obstinacy but the Mongols said “He is your greatest man and you should prize him highly.”
So ended the first act of the tragedy, but it was not to be the last. A Mongol residency was established at Song-do and Mongol governors were stationed at important centers throughout the country. The Mongol resident insisted upon entering the palace by the middle gate which the king alone used, but it was shut and barred and he was not able to carry his point. When the tribute above mentioned reached Gen. Sal Ye-t‘ap he expressed the greatest dissatisfaction with it because it fell so far short of what was demanded and he imprisoned the messenger who brought it. The king sent an envoy to the Mongol capital saluting the emperor as suzerain for the first time.