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.