In the year 591, the ill-fated Emperor Sushun conceived the idea of sending a large army to re-establish his country's prestige in the peninsula, but his own assassination intervened, and for the space of nine years the subject was not publicly revived. Then, in 600, the Empress Suiko being on the throne, a unique opportunity presented itself. War broke out between Shiragi and Mimana. The Yamato Court at once despatched a force of ten thousand men to Mimana's aid, and Shiragi, having suffered a signal defeat, made act of abject submission, restoring to Mimana six of its original provinces and promising solemnly to abstain from future hostilities. The Japanese committed the error of crediting Shiragi's sincerity. They withdrew their forces, but no sooner had their ships passed below the horizon than Shiragi once more invaded Mimana. It seemed at this juncture as though the stars in their courses fought against Japan. Something, indeed, must be ascribed to her own methods of warfare which appear to have been overmerciful for the age. Thus, with the bitter experience of Shiragi's treachery fresh in her recollection, she did not execute a Shiragi spy seized in Tsushima, but merely banished him to the province of Kozuke. Still, she must be said to have been the victim of special ill-fortune when an army of twenty-five thousand men, assembled in Tsukushi for the invasion of Shiragi, was twice prevented from sailing by unforseeable causes, one being the death of Prince Kume, its commander-in-chief; the other, the death of the consort of his successor, Prince Taema.* *Early Japanese history furnishes several examples showing that wives often accompanied their husbands on campaigns.