At first the new dynasty sent ships, embassies, and presents regularly to Japan, which were duly received, yet not at the mikado’s palace in Kiōto, but at the shō-gun’s court at Kamakura, twelve miles from the site of the modern Japanese capital, Tōkiō. But as the Ashikaga family became effeminate in life, their power waned, and rival chiefs started up all over the country. Clan fights and chronic intestine war became the rule in Japan. Only small areas of territory were governed from Kamakura, while the mikado became the tool and prey of rival daimiōs. One of these petty rulers held Tsushima, and traded at a settlement on the Corean coast called Fusan, by means of which some intercourse was kept up between the two countries. The Japanese government had always made use of Tsushima in its communications with the Coreans, and the agency at Fusan was composed almost exclusively of retainers of the feudal lord of this island. The journey by land and sea from Seoul to Kamakura, often consumed two or three months, and with civil wars inland and piracy on the water, intercourse between the two countries became less and less. The last embassy from Seoul was sent in 1460, but after that, owing to continued intestine war, the absence of the Coreans was not noticed by the Ashikagas, and as the Tsushima men purposely kept their customers ignorant of the weakness of their rulers at Kamakura and Kiōto, lest the ancient vassals should cease to fear their old master, the Coreans remained in profound ignorance of the real state of affairs in Japan. As they were never summoned, so they never came. Giving themselves no further anxiety concerning the matter, they rejoiced that such disagreeable duties were no longer incumbent upon them. It is even said in Corean histories that their government took the offensive, and under the reign of the king Chung-jong (1506–1544) captured Tsushima and several other Japanese islands, formerly tributary to Corea. Whatever fraction of truth there may be in this assertion, it is certain that Japan afterward took ample revenge on the score both of neglect and of reprisal.