We must remember that the Mongols were continental people and knew nothing of the sea. Even the narrow strip of water between Kang-wha and the mainland daunted them. And so it was that the king from his island retreat defied the tremendous Mongol power.
By 1238, when the Mongols again flooded the country with their soldiery, the people had mostly found refuge among the mountains and on the thousands of islands which lie off the western coast of Korea. It would be impossible for anyone to imagine the suffering and distress entailed by these invasions. The records say that the people simply left their houses and fields and fled to these places of refuge. What did these hundreds of thousands of people live on as they fled, and after they reached their places of retreat? What breaking of old bonds of friendship and kinship, what rending of family ties and uprooting of ancient landmarks! It is a marvel that the land ever recovered from the shock. These Mongols were fiercer and more ruthless than the Japanese who overran the country three centuries later and they were far more numerous, besides. Plunder being their main motive, their marauding bands covered a much greater territory and mowed a much wider swath than did the soldiers of the great Hideyoshi, who kept to comparatively narrow[narrow] lines of march. Nor did these Mongols meet the opposition which the Japanese met. The Mongols made a clean sweep of the country, and never again do we read of those splendid armies of 200,000 or 300,000 men which Koryŭ was once able to put into the field, even when groaning under the weight of a corrupt court and a rampant priesthood. It is from these days that dates that utter prostration of Koryŭ’s power which left her an easy prey to every Japanese freebooter who had 100 good swords at his back.
After ravaging to their hearts’ content the Mongols withdrew in 1236 to their own territory but sent a messenger ordering the king to go to Peking and bow before the Mongol emperor. He refused, but sent instead a relative by the name of Chŭn with a letter asking the emperor to excuse him from attempting the difficult journey to the Mongol court. Again the next year the same demand was made, but this time the king simply declined to go. The Mongols then modified their demand and ordered the King to come out from his island retreat and return to Song-do. This the king had no intention of doing; but the next year he sent another relation named Sun as a hostage to the Mongol court asserting that this was his son. The emperor believed this and married Sun to one of his own near relatives.
The Mongol emperor Ogdai died in 1242 and the queen dowager took charge of affairs during an[an] interval of four years, until 1246, when Gayuk became emperor. This brought peace to troubled Koryŭ for a period of five or six years. During this time, all that was left of her resources was used up in sending five or six embassies to the Mongol court each year. The moment the pressure of war was raised the king followed once more the bent of his inclinations, and while the country was in the very lowest depths of distress he feasted royally in his island retreat, while the viceroy vied with him in the splendor of his entertainments. It is said that at one feast 1300 musicians performed. Meantime the people were slowly returning to their homes.
Gayuk Khan came to the Mongol throne in 1246, and it was the signal for the renewal of hostilities against Koryŭ. At first four hundred men came, ostensibly to catch sea-otter but in reality to spy out the country and learn the mountain passes of the north. The king was not expecting a renewal of hostilities, or else was too much taken up with his feasting to attend to the defenses of the north; so the people fled in panic before this handful of invaders. Many of them took refuge on Wi-do Island off P‘yŭng-an Province and there engaged in agriculture. They built a great dam across an estuary of the sea and reclaimed a large tract of cultivable land, but they suffered badly from lack of wells.
In 1249 Gayuk died and the regency again devolved upon the queen dowager. Peace again reigned for a time, broken only by a single attempted invasion by the Yŭ-jin people, which was unsuccessful. The king began the erection of a new palace at Song-do in order to make it appear that he intended to obey the standing injunction of his suzerain to go back to the capital.
The Mongol regency ended in 1251 and Mangu Khan became emperor. An envoy was immediately despatched to inquire whether the king had yet obeyed this command, but as the answer was unsatisfactory the Koryŭ envoy who appeared at the emperor’s court the following year was thrown into prison and a last envoy was sent with instructions to[to] settle the question definitely. If the king would come out and return to his capital the people might remain on Kang-wha, but if the king refused, the envoy was to return with all haste to the Emperor and war would be declared at once. A certain Korean, hearing about these instructions, hastened forward and informed the king and urged that he go out and meet the envoy. To this the king did not assent. When the envoy arrived the king set a great feast for him, in the midst of which the Mongol arose and, assuming a terrible aspect, demanded loudly why the king did not leave the island and return to Song-do. Without waiting for an answer to the question he strode out of the hall and posted back to the north. The people were in dismay and said to each other, “This means war again.”
When the lengthening vernal sun of 1253 had melted the northern snows this prophetic word was verified. The renegade Koryŭ general, Hong Pok-wŭn, told the emperor that the king had triple-walled the island of Kang-wha and would not move therefrom. War, ever welcome to these first Mongol emperors, was now afoot. The first detachment of 10,000 troops was led by the Emperor’s brother Song-ju. With many allies from the Yŭ-jin and other tribes he crossed the Yalu. Then the Mongol general, A Mo-gan, and the renegade Hong crossed and advanced as far as the Ta-dong River. Following these came Gen. Ya Gol-dă with sixteen chieftains in his train and with a formidable array of troops.
The envoy Sun who, we will remember, had married a Mongol princess, now wrote an urgent letter to the king saying “The emperor is angry because you persist in disobeying him and he is sending seventeen kings against you. But he says that if you will leave the island and follow out his commands he will even now recall the army. You have now an opportunity of giving your country a lasting peace. If you leave the island, send your son to the emperor and receive the Mongol envoy well, it will be a blessing to the kingdom of Koryŭ. If you will not do this, I beg of you to put all my family to death.”
Beneath this last appeal lay a terrible threat and the king realized it. A great council was convened and the universal voice was in favor of compliance; but a single voice was raised in opposition. It said “How much treasure have we squandered on this insatiable barbarian, and how many good men have gone as envoys and never returned. Let the king go out now from this place of safety and when we behold him a corpse our condition will be enviable indeed!” This word startles the assembly. Cowards that they are, they rise to their feet and with one voice applaud the stirring words and charge the king to stay in his island fortress and still defy the savage of the north.