Toward the close of 1377 the Mongol chieftain In-puk-wŭn sent the king a letter saying, “Let us join forces and attack the Ming power.” At the same time he sent back all the Koryŭ people who had been taken captive at various times. The king’s answer was a truly diplomatic one. He said, “I will do so if you will first send the king of Mukden to me, bound hand and foot.” We need hardly say that this request was not granted.
The next attack of the Japanese extended all along the southern coast. The general who had been placed in the south to guard against them spent his time feasting with courtezans and he and his officers were commonly known as “The Revellers.” Fighting was not at all in their intentions. When the king learned of this he banished the general to a distant island. Affairs at the capital were not going well. Officials were so numerous that the people again made use of the term “Smoke House Officials,” for there were so many that nearly every house in the capital furnished one. They tampered with the list of appointments and without the king’s knowledge slipped in the names of their friends. So the people in contempt called it the “Secret List.”
The coquetting with the Mongols brought forth fruit when early in 1378 they invested the king of Koryŭ and he adopted the Mongol name of the year. It is said that this caused great delight among the Mongols and that they now thought that with the help of Koryŭ they would be able to again establish their power in China.
After the Japanese had ravaged to their hearts’ content in Ch‘ung-ch‘ŭng Province and had killed 1000 men on Kang-wha and had burned fifty boats, the king did what he ought to have done long before, namely, appointed Gen. Yi T‘ă-jo as General-in-chief of the Koryŭ forces. He took hold of the matter in earnest and summoned a great number of monks to aid in the making of boats for coast defence. The pirates now were ravaging the east and south and were advancing on Song-do. The king wanted to run away but was dissuaded. The Japanese were strongest in Kyŭng-sang Province. Gen Yi’s first encounter with them was at Chi-ri Mountain in Chŭl-la Province and he there secured a great victory, demonstrating what has always been true, that under good leadership Koreans make excellent soldiers. When the Koryŭ troops had advanced within 200 paces of the enemy a burly Japanese was seen leaping and showing himself off before his fellows. Gen. Yi took a cross-bow and at the first shot laid the fellow low. The remainder of the Japanese fled up the mountain and took their stand in a solid mass which the records say resembled a hedge-hog; but Gen. Yi soon found a way to penetrate this phalanx and the pirates were slaughtered almost to a man[to a man]. But Gen. Yi could not be everywhere at once and in the meantime Kang-wha again suffered. Gen. Yi was next seen fighting in Whang-hă Province at Hă-ju, where he burned the Japanese out from behind wooden defenses and slaughtered them without quarter.
The Japanese Government had not been able as yet to put down the pirates, but now an envoy, Sin Hong, a monk, came with gifts declaring that the government was not a party to the expeditions of the freebooters and that it was very difficult to overcome them. And so the work went on, now on one coast of the country and now on another. The king sent an envoy to the Japanese Shogun, P‘ă-ga-dă, to ask his interference, but the shogun imprisoned the envoy and nearly starved him to death and then sent him back. The king wanted to send another, but the courtiers were all afraid. They all hated the wise and learned Chöng Mong-ju and told the king to send him. He was quite willing to go and, arriving at the palace of the shogun, he spoke out fearlessly and rehearsed the friendly relations that had existed between the two countries, and created a very good impression. He was very popular both with the shogun himself and with the Japanese courtiers and when he returned to Koryŭ the shogun sent a general, Chu Mang-in, as escort and also 200 Koreans who had at some previous time been taken captive. The shogun also so far complied with the king’s request as to break up the piratical settlements on the Sam-do or “Three islands.”
A man named Im Sŭn-mu had learned among the Mongols the art of making gunpowder and a bureau was now formed to attend to its manufacture but as yet there were no firearms.
With the opening of 1379 things looked blacker than ever. The Japanese were swarming in Ch‘ung-ch‘ŭng Province and on Kang-wha. The king was in mortal fear and had the walls of Song-do carefully guarded. Gen. Ch‘oe Yŭng was sent to hold them in check. The Japanese knew that no one but he stood between them and Song-do so they attacked him fiercely and soon put him to flight; but in the very nick of time Gen. Yi T‘ă-jo came up with his cavalry, turned the retreating forces about and attacked the enemy so fiercely that defeat was turned into a splendid victory. A messenger arrived breathless at the gate of Song-do saying that Gen. Ch‘oé had been defeated.
All was instantly in turmoil; the king had all his valuables packed and was ready to flee at a moment’s warning. But lo! another messenger followed hard upon the heels of the first announcing that Gen. Yi had turned the tide of battle and had wrested victory from the teeth of the enemy.
The good will of the Japanese government was shown when a prefect in western Japan sent sixty soldiers under the command of a monk, Sin Hong, to aid in the putting down of the corsairs. They made some attempts to check their lawless countrymen but soon found that they had undertaken more than they had bargained for, and so returned to Japan. As the pirates were ravaging the west coast as far north as P‘yŭng-yang, the king sent against them Generals Na Se and Sim Tŭk-pu who had been successful before. By the use of fire-arrows they succeeded in burning several of the enemy’s boats at Chin-p‘o and of course had the fellows at their mercy, for they had no means of escape.
It is evident the king did not know his own mind in relation to Chinese suzerainty. Now he favored the Mongols and now the Mings. A year or so before this he had adopted the Mongol name of the year but now he turns about and adopts the Ming name again. It was this vacillation, this playing fast and loose with his obligations, that alienated the good-will of the Ming emperor and made him look with complacency upon the dissolution[dissolution] of the Koryŭ dynasty.