The Mongol and Koryŭ envoys, upon reaching the Japanese capital, were treated with marked disrespect. They were not allowed to enter the gates, but were lodged at a place called T‘ă-jă-bu, outside the west gate of the city. There they remained five months, and their entertainment was of the poorest quality. And at last they were dismissed without receiving any answer either to the emperor or to the king.
Kublai Khan was not the kind of a man to relish this sort of treatment and when he heard the story he sent a messenger straight to Koryŭ telling the king “I have decided to invade Japan. You must immediately begin the building of one thousand boats. You must furnish four thousand bags of rice and a contingent of 40,000 troops.” The king replied that this was beyond his power, for so many of the people had run away that workmen could not be secured in sufficient numbers. The emperor, however, was resolute and soon sent an envoy to see if his orders were being carried out, and to make a survey of the straits between Koryŭ and Japan, in the vicinity of Heuk-san Island. The emperor could scarcely believe that the Japanese would dare to treat his envoy so disrespectfully as had been reported and he suspected that it was some sort of ruse that the king of Koryŭ had been playing on him; so he decided to send his envoy Heuk Chŭk once more to Japan. This time also he was accompanied by a Koryŭ envoy, Sim Sa-jŭn.
Meantime Kim Chun finding that his foul murder of the Mongol envoy went unpunished, became prouder and more headstrong. His son stole two boatloads of vegetables intended for the king’s own table. This roused the ire of the king. Kim Chun might kill all the Mongol envoys he wished but when it came to stealing from the king’s table something must be done. There was only one official, Im Yun, who hated Kim Chun worse than he feared him and the king selected this man for the work in hand. Sending away all the other officials to a neighboring monastery to sacrifice to Buddha for his health, he summoned Kim Chun and, when he had him at his mercy, let Im Yun fall upon him with a club and take his life. Kim Chun’s brother likewise fell the same day and the household of the offender was broken up. The usual impotence of the king was illustrated here by the very trick to which he was forced in order to rid himself of his traitorous subject.
The spring of 1268 opened, and still the envoys had not returned from Japan. The Koryŭ people managed to capture some Japanese from Tsushima who had come near the Korean coast. They were sent to Peking together with an envoy. The emperor was delighted, showed the captives all over the palace and reviewed the army before them. After showing them all the grandeur of the Mongol court, he sent them back to tell their king about it and to urge him to make friends with the great Yuan empire. This same year the crown prince went to the Mongol court.
Im Yun, whom the king had used as an instrument for the removal of the obnoxious Kim Chun, did not intend to go without his reward. He began to plan how he might become a king-maker himself. He desired to depose the king and put another in his place who would be quite subservient to himself. To this end he began to banish those who might oppose him in this scheme, and at last when he had cleared the way and deemed the time ripe, he surrounded himself with a powerful guard and called all the officials to a council. He told them that the king desired to kill him, but rather than die tamely he was resolved to do something desperate. He asked them if they agreed, but no man dared to open his mouth. Then putting on his armor he led the way to the palace and proclaimed Chang as king. This Chang was a distant relative of the king. He also made all the officials bow to him. The records say that this deed was accompanied by a tremendous storm of rain in which the deposed king was driven forth on foot. Im Yun and his lewd followers then proceeded to loot the palace.
The parvenu Chang, at the instance of Im Yun sent an envoy to the Mongol court saying that the king had handed over the reins of government to him. The king’s son, who had gone but lately to the Chinese court, was now on his way home. He arrived at night on the farther bank of the Yalu River and was there met by a secret messenger who had crossed in the dark to tell him that Chang had usurped the throne and that soldiers had been stationed at Eui-ju to kill him when he arrived. So the Prince turned and hastened back to the emperor and a letter was immediately dispatched demanding the reinstatement of the rightful sovereign. After two such appeals had remained unanswered the emperor threatened to send an army to enforce the demand. The officials thereupon became afraid and reluctantly put the rightful king back upon his throne. The emperor then ordered both the king and the man who had deposed him to go to China in order that the matter might be investigated. The king went but Im Yun refused and sent his son instead. The emperor ordered the king to write out the cause of the trouble but the latter feared that if he did so it would make trouble for him when he went back, for Im Yun was a powerful and unscrupulous man. He therefore told the emperor that he was troubled with a lame hand that prevented his writing. Later however, in private, he made the matter bare before the emperor and as a consequence Im Yun’s son was thrown into prison. Before returning to Koryŭ the king asked the emperor to bestow upon his son, the crown prince, the hand of one of the Mongol princesses, to give him a Mongol escort back to Koryŭ, to place a Mongol governor at P‘yŭng-yang and to return to the control of Koryŭ the northern districts of the peninsula. The emperor consented to all but the last of these requests. When the king came back to Song-do, Im Yun attempted to oppose him but was speedily put down and decapitated.
Arriving at the capital the king went into camp outside the walls to await the completion of the palace which was in course of construction. The troops oppressed the people, and when the king ordered them to disband they marched out in a body and went by boat to Chŭl-la Province and began to act in a rebellious manner. A royal army, sent against them, chased them into the island of Chin-do where they forced the people to join their standards. Mongol and Koryŭ troops were sent against them, but the people hated the Mongols so heartily that this rather added to the difficulty than otherwise, and the disaffection, spreading with increased rapidity, began to assume serious proportions. The emperor learned of this and, believing that the king was hardly equal to the task of managing the affairs of the government, sent a commissioner to assume control at Song-do.
Matters stood thus when in 1270 the emperor determined to send another envoy to Japan. Cho Yong-p‘il and Hong Ta-gu were appointed to this important mission and they were joined in Koryŭ by the representative of that country, by name Yang Yun-so. This embassy was charged with the somewhat dangerous task of demanding the submission of Japan. The emperor did not anticipate success in this, as is shown by the fact that he had rice fields made in Pong-san, Koryŭ, to raise rice for an army of invasion which he intended to launch upon Japan. For this work he ordered the king to furnish 6000 plows and oxen, as well as seed grain. The king protested that this was quite beyond his power, but as the emperor insisted he sent through the country and by force or persuasion obtained a fraction of the number demanded. The emperor aided by sending 10,000 pieces of silk. The Koryŭ army had dwindled to such a point that butchers and slaves were enrolled in the lists. The rebel army had been driven out of Chin-do, but a remnant had crossed over to Quelpart where the kingdom of T‘am-na still flourished. Many of these rebels had been captured on Chin-do and had been taken as captives to China. Now at the request of the king they were sent back to Song-do for punishment. A curious complication arose in connection with this. These rebels, when they first went to Kang-wha had stolen the wives of many of the officials there and had carried them south. These women accompanied their newly acquired husbands to China; but now that they were all returned to Song-do many of them again met their former husbands. Some were received back gladly while others were not wanted, owing to new arrangements which were quite satisfactory. But the king commanded that all officials who found their former wives should take them back.
The emperor, influenced by evil-minded men who exaggerated the wealth of the peninsula, demanded that Koryŭ send a large amount of timber to China, but the king answered that he could not accomplish impossibilities. The commissioner who had been sent was a capable man and was well liked by the people in spite of his Mongol nationality. The commissioner fell ill and was fast approaching his end. The king sent him some medicine but he refused to take it, saying that if he took it and yet died the emperor might charge the king with having made away with him by poison. So the disease ran its course and the commissioner expired amid the lamentations of the people. Their appreciation of this Mongol’s kindness shows how badly they were accustomed to being governed. Their high appreciation of his mild and just government overcame even their prejudice against his birth.
It was in this same year that Kublai Khan proclaimed the name of his empire Yuan.