It was on the last day of the first moon of the year 1637 that at last, having exhausted all other means, having endured the rigors of a winter siege in a fortress but half prepared for the emergency, having seen his faithful soldiers die about him from hunger and exposure, the king was driven to surrender to the Manchu power. The day broke with a great bank of fog enveloping everything. The West Gate of the fortress swung open and the royal cavalcade appeared, bearing manifest signs of the long confinement. The king and Crown Prince, according to the directions of the victors, were clad in blue. Behind them came the hollow-cheeked, but loyal, soldiers who would have stayed and defended the walls to the bitter end had the king but given the word. As the royal party descended the winding road to the valley below, they came upon long lines of heavy-armed Manchu cavalry drawn up on either side of the road. The king was startled, and anxiously asked what it meant, but was told that it was simply in honor of the coming of the king. Soon the party met the two Manchu generals, Yonggolda and Mabuda. The king dismounted and the proper salutations took place between them. Then they sat down and went through a formal interchange of civilities, seated so as to face east and west according to the proper rule of etiquette. When these formalities were completed, they escorted the king to the place where anciently the town of Kwang-ju stood, at which point there was a short pause. The king’s immediate staff consisted of three ministers of state, five officials of the second rank, five of the rank of royal scribe and one or two others. Besides these there were only the Crown Prince and his tutor. In front, and at a considerable[considerable] distance, was a raised platform covered with a yellow silk awning, under which the emperor sat upon a throne. In front were drawn up a company of trumpeters. General Yonggolda and the king dismounted and the former led the king toward the imperial dais. Upon reaching the eastern entrance to the imperial presence they bowed three times and struck the hand on the back of the head. Then they entered and bowed on a mat before the emperor. The king was then told to ascend the platform. The emperor sat facing the south and the king sat on his left facing the west. To the left of the king and also facing the west sat the emperor’s three sons, and finally the king’s sons who had been brought up from Kang-wha. Below the platform sat the Korean officials and at a distance the common people. The emperor’s gilded throne sat on a dais raised nine inches above the platform, beneath a yellow silk umbrella and the “plume banner.” The emperor sat twirling an arrow in his hand. A cup of tea was handed the king. Then the emperor said to the Korean Prime Minister through an interpreter “Now we are inmates of one house, let us try our skill at archery.” The Minister answered, perhaps with a shade of irony, “We know letters, but we are not skilled in archery.” Food was brought in and placed before the king, the same in quality and amount as that placed before the emperor. Each drank three cups of wine and then the food was carried away. This was simply a formality, intended to put the king at his ease. A servant then brought in the emperor’s dogs and with his own hand he cut meat and threw it into the air for the animals to catch. Descending from the platform the king had the pleasure of meeting the Crown Princess. Their brief conversation was interrupted by General Yonggolda who came up with a magnificent horse sumptuously caparisoned, and with a splendid sable robe. These he announced were a gift from the emperor, but at the same time he asked why the king had not brought the royal insignia that had been given by the Chinese emperor, that it might be destroyed. The answer was that it had been lost at the time of the making of the former treaty with the Manchus, but that it would be hunted up and handed over to the Manchu general. General Yonggolda also presented each of the ministers about the king with a sable robe. At five o‘clock in the afternoon, as night was coming on, the emperor gave word that the king might proceed to Seoul. It will be remembered that the Crown Prince and Princess, together with Prince Pong-im, were to be taken away to Manchuria as hostages. Before starting for Seoul the king bade them adieu and then with a heavy heart turned toward his capital.
The retinue that followed the king was so numerous that when they came to the ferry at Song-p‘a and found there were too few boats to convey them all, there was a disgraceful scramble for first place, and the king was hustled and dragged about in a most unbecoming manner. Finally the crossing was effected and as the cavalcade proceeded toward Seoul they saw the Manchu camps along the way crowded with Korean women, some of whom were wailing as if their hearts would break, while others were making merry over the prospect of being carried away to the north.
The Manchu soldiery had been ordered out of Seoul to make room for the king and so the royal party found the way blocked by an immense crowd of Manchu soldiers loaded down with booty and leading hundreds of captives. As the king passed by, these miserable beings cried out to him to save them, but their captors urged them on with word and lash. The crowd was so dense, and the out-going stream of men pressed so closely against those entering, that many in the king’s retinue were taken for captives and were seized and carried away. Even some men of noble blood were thus, in the darkness and confusion, spirited away and never heard of again.
It was seven o’clock when the king entered the gate of Seoul. The city was almost deserted. Dead men lay in heaps along the streets. The houses on both sides of the street were in ashes. All the poultry and pigs were gone and only dogs remained, and these had been transformed into wolves and were gorging themselves on the dead bodies along the way. As the Ch‘ang-gyöng Palace was nearest the East Gate the royal party went there to spend the night. All night long, in spite of the Emperor’s orders, Manchu soldiers scoured the streets, burning and pillaging and working their terrible will for the last time on the deserted capital.
Two days later the Manchu army was to start on its long journey to the north and the king went three miles outside the East Gate to bid adieu to the emperor, for it was determined to pass around Seoul on the east and so strike northward. It took thirteen days for the whole army to get on the move. There were 120,000 men in all. Thirty thousand of these were Mongols and they took the road to the east through Ham-gyŭng Province and crossed the Tu-man River. There were 70,000 Manchus and 20,000 Chinese from Liao-tung. Generals Kong Yu-dŭk and Kyöng Myŭng-jung with 20,000 men took boat at Yong-san and sailed north to strike Ka-do Island.
The day following that on which the king took leave of the Emperor, the generals Yonggolda and Mabuda came to the palace to confer with the king. The Minister Kim Nyu, as if to anticipate them, said “The relation between us now is that of son and father. We stand ready to fulfill our obligations on that basis even though you ask for soldiers to help on the invasion of China and the seizure of Nanking.” Hong Sö-bong asked that in view of the scarcity of gold in Korea part of the tribute be remitted, but it was not granted. Kim Nyu’s daughter had been carried away captive to Manchuria and he had plead with the two generals and the king himself had aided him but without avail. He now offered a thousand ounces of silver for her ransom. It was accepted but the result was disastrous to others for it set a precedent, and a like sum was asked for each of the high-born captives, with the result that few of them were ever ransomed.
The Emperor’s ninth brother had charge of all the captives, and on the fifth day of the second moon the crown prince was allowed to go to the king to say farewell. He was accompanied by a guard of six Manchus who cut the interview very short and hurried him away to the camp outside the East Gate. On the seventh the king and his court went out to this camp to say good-bye, and the Manchus set out a fine banquet, at which some of the Koreans ate greedily while others would not touch a morsel. The next day the order was given to start on the long march into Manchuria. The royal hostages were accompanied by fifteen high officials. The king and his court accompanied the party twenty li out, as far as Chang-neung, where with many tears the final separation took place.
The work of reconstruction was now to be commenced, and of course the first work was to punish those who had proved unfaithful and to reward those who had proved loyal. First Gen. Kim Cha-jŭm, who had lain so long at Yang-geun and would not move to help the king, was banished and with him Sim Keui-wŭn, Sin Kyöng-wan and the governor of Kang-wŭn Province who had hesitated to throw away their lives and those of their men in the perfectly hopeless task of breaking up the siege of Nam-han. Admiral Chang Sin, who had been prevented by the swift outflowing tide from opposing the crossing of the Manchus to Kang-wha was killed by strangulation outside the Little West Gate. Kim Chyŭng-jeung who had been in command of Kang-wha, and his lieutenant Yi Min-gu were both banished to distant points. The king gave a great feast at Mo-wha-gwan to those who had aided him while besieged, both nobleman and common soldier. The four most prominent generals each received the gift of a horse. All the courtiers were advanced one step in the ladder of officialdom. Other gifts and positions were distributed. Those who had deserted the royal party when on that hard ride to Nam-han were seized and imprisoned. Sim Chip, who had refused to lie about his companion who went to the Manchu camp to personate the king’s brother, was banished to a distant point. Kim Sang-hön had fled to the country when the king came out of Nam-han to surrender. Being now included in those who received marks of royal favor, he wrote declaring that the could not receive them, for in the first place he had urged the king not to surrender and in the second place had run away and had also torn to pieces the letter written by the king. “But,” he added “though weak and forced to surrender, the king must always keep these things in mind and seek for means to be avenged on the Manchus.”
The king had sent Generals Yu Rim and Im Kyöng-ŭp to aid in the taking of Ka-do Island in the north. In the third moon Gen. Mabuda took fifty boats and crossed over from the mainland to the west side of these islands, which the Chinese garrison had left unprotected. Landing his force he ascended at night a hill to the rear of the Chinese camp. With the morning dawn he made a sudden and fierce attack. Meanwhile the Korean general Im Kyöng-ŭp had arrived with forty boats and had disembarked on the eastern shore. The Chinese, thrown into confusion, rushed down to the shore and tumbled into these forty boats that they found unguarded. But the crowd was so great that only a small fraction could be accommodated. As a consequence they swamped most of the boats and hundreds perished. The Chinese commander, seeing that all was lost, committed suicide. There were still great numbers of Chinese among the mountains fighting desperately. These were all cut down. It is said that in this short campaign between forty and fifty thousand Chinese were killed. During the unequal battle the Chinese kept calling out, “What cause for enmity is there between Korea and China?” This was of course addressed to the Koreans who fought with the Manchus. After the battle the Manchu general Kong Yu-dŭk gave generals Im and Yu a present of 250 Chinese captives, but the former said, “I do not care for these men. Exchange them for a like number of Korean captives who are going into Manchuria as slaves.” This was done, and Gen. Im’s name has come down to posterity fragrant with the odor of this unselfish deed.