The mother of the king could not be brought to treat Sin-don[Sin-don] with respect. When the king expostulated with her and told her that the favorite was the pillar of the state she declared that he was a low-born adventurer and that she would not treat him as her equal. From that time she incurred the deadly enmity of the favorite who used every means in his power to influence the king against her. He became suspicious of everyone who held any high position and caused many of the highest officials to be put to death. He was commonly called “The Tiger.” The depth of the king’s infatuation was shown when in this same year he went to a monastery to give thanks to Buddha for the cessation of famine, which he ascribed to his having taken Sin-don[Sin-don] as counsellor. It is also shown in the impunity with which Sin-don took the king to task in public for certain things that displeased him. The favorite was playing with fire. The people sent to the king repeatedly asking if the rumors of the favorite’s drunkenness and debaucheries were correct. But the king’s eyes had not yet been opened to the true state of affairs and these petitioners were severely punished.
Chapter XI.
Sin-don’s pride.... Mongol Emperor’s plan of escape to Koryŭ.... Mongol Empire falls.... Japanese envoy snubbed.... an imperial letter from the Ming court.... ill treatment of Japanese envoy bears fruit.... more trouble in Quelpart.... census and revenue.... Gen. Yi promoted.... Koryŭ adopts Ming dress and coiffure.... Gen. Yi makes a campaign across the Yalu.... the Japanese come north of the capital.... Sin-don is overthrown.... popular belief regarding him.... trouble from three sources at the same time.... a Mongol messenger.... the Japanese burn Han-yang.... a new favorite.... a laughing-stock.... Chöng Mong-ju an envoy to Nanking.... plans for a navy.... useless army.... Ming Emperor demands horses.... Quelpart rebels defeated.... king assassinated.... Ming Emperor refuses to ratify the succession.... Mongols favored at the Koryŭ court.... a supernatural proof.... Japanese repulsed.... Japanese deny their responsibility for the action of corsairs.
The year 1367 saw no diminution of the symptoms that proclaimed the deep-seated disease that was eating at the vitals of Koryŭ. Sin-don even dared to flout the emperor by scornfully casting aside an imperial missive containing a notification of his elevation to an honorary position. The king continued to abase himself by performing menial duties in Buddhistic ceremonies at his favorite monastery. Sin-don added to his other claims the power of geomancy and said the king must move the capital to P‘yŭng-yang. He was sent to look over the site with a view to a removal thither, but a storm of hail frightened him out of the project. Returning to Song-do he refused to see the king for four days, urging as his excuse the fatigue of the journey. His encroachments continued to such a point that at last he took no care to appear before the king in the proper court dress but came in the ordinary dress of the Koryŭ gentleman, and he ordered the historians not to mention the fact in the annals.
The Mongol horse-breeders still ruffled it in high style on the island of Quelpart where they even saw fit to drive out the prefect sent by the king. For this reason an expedition was fitted out against them and they were soon brought to terms. They however appealed to the emperor. As it happened the Mongol emperor was at this time in desperate straits and foresaw the impossibility of long holding Peking against the Ming forces. He therefore formed the plan of escaping to the island of Quelpart and there finding asylum. For this purpose he sent large store of treasure and of other necessaries to this place. At the same time he sent an envoy to the court at Song-do relinquishing all claim to the island. In this way he apparently hoped to gain the good will of Koryŭ, of which he feared he would soon stand in need. The king, not knowing the emperor’s design, feared that this was a device by which to raise trouble and he hastened to send an envoy declaring that the expeditions to Quelpart were not in reference to the Mongols there but in order to dislodge a band of Japanese freebooters. The former prefects had always treated the people of Quelpart harshly and had exacted large sums from them on any and every pretext; but the prefect now sent was determined to show the people a different kind of rule. He even carried jars of water from the mainland rather than drink the water of Quelpart. So at least the records affirm. Naturally the people idolized him.
The year 1368 opened, the year which beheld the demolition of the Mongol empire. It had risen less than a century before and had increased with marvelous rapidity until it threatened the whole eastern hemisphere. Its decadence had been as rapid and as terrible as its rise. The Mongols were peculiarly unfit to resist the seductions of the more refined civilizations which they encountered. The Ming forces drove the Mongol court from Peking and the dethroned emperor betook himself northward into the desert to the town of Sa-mak.
This year also witnessed the arrival of a friendly embassy from Japan bearing gifts to the king. Here was Koryŭ’s great opportunity to secure the coöperation of the Japanese government in the work of putting down the pirates who were harrying the shores of the peninsula. Proper treatment of this envoy and a little diplomacy would have saved Koryŭ untold suffering, but the low-born but all-powerful favorite, Sin-don, took advantage of the occasion to make an exhibition of his own importance and he snubbed the envoy so effectually that the latter immediately returned to Japan. The foolish favorite went so far as to withhold proper food from him and his suite, and addressed them in low forms of speech. The same year, at his instigation, the whole system of national examinations was done away with.
A FORM OF SEPULTURE.
Early in 1369 the first envoy, Sŭl Sa, from the Ming court arrived in Song-do. He was the bearer of an imperial letter which read as follows[follows]:-