No sooner were the Manchius able to spare their forces for the purpose, than, turning from China, they marched into Corea, one hundred thousand strong, well supplied with provisions and baggage-wagons. Entering the peninsula, both at Ai-chiu and by the northern pass, they reached Seoul, and, after severe fighting, entered it. Being now provided with cannon and boats, they took Kang-wa, into which all the royal, and many of the noble, ladies had fled for safety. The king now came to terms, and made a treaty in February, 1637, in which he utterly renounced his allegiance to the Ming emperor, agreed to give his two sons as hostages, promised to send an annual embassy, with tribute, to the Manchiu court, and to establish a market at the Border Gate, in Liao Tung. These covenants were ratified by the solemn ceremonial of the king, his sons and his ministers confessing their crimes and making “kow-tow” (bowing nine times to the earth). Tartar and Corean worshipped together before Heaven, and the altar erected to Heaven’s honor. A memorial stone, erected near this sacred place, commemorates the clemency of the Manchiu conqueror. In obedience to the orders of their new masters, the Coreans despatched ships, loaded with grain, to feed the armies operating against Peking, and sent a small force beyond the Tumen to chastise a tribe that had rebelled against their conquerors. A picked body of their matchlock men was also admitted into the Manchiu service. After the evacuation of Corea, the victors marched into China, where bloody, civil war was already raging. The imperial army was badly beaten by the rebels headed by the usurper Li-tse-ching. The Manchius joined their forces with the Imperialists, and defeated the rebels, and then demanded the price of their victory. Entering Peking, they proclaimed the downfall of the house of Ming. The Tâtar (vassal) was now a “Tartar.” The son of their late king was set upon the dragon-throne and proclaimed the Whang Ti, the Son of Heaven, and the Lord of the Middle Kingdom and all her vassals. The following tribute was fixed for Chō-sen to pay annually: 100 ounces of gold, 1,000 ounces of silver, 10,000 bags of rice, 2,000 pieces of silk, 300 pieces of linen, 10,000 pieces of cotton cloth, 400 pieces of hemp cloth, 100 pieces of fine hemp cloth, 10,000 rolls (fifty sheets each) of large paper, 1,000 rolls small sized paper, 2,000 knives (good quality), 1,000 ox-horns, 40 decorated mats, 200 pounds of dye-wood, 10 boxes of pepper, 100 tiger skins, 100 deer skins, 400 beaver skins, 200 skins of blue (musk?) rats. When, as it happened the very next year, the shō-gun of Japan demanded an increase of tribute to be paid in Yedo, the court of Seoul plead in excuse their wasted resources consequent upon the war with the Manchius, and their heavy burdens newly laid upon them. Their excuse was accepted.