previous conflicts with the Japanese. He contented himself with the issue of an edict forbidding all further intercourse with the Japanese. Stringent measures were at the same time taken for the defense of the coast. Korea also had suffered severely from the attacks of Japanese pirates, who engaged in open conflict with the Korean troops, killing their generals, destroying their barracks, and plundering houses, ships, and grain-stores. In these encounters the army of Korea showed lack of courage, frequently retreating before the Japanese raiders without striking a blow. The earnest requests of the Korean king, in 1367 and 1375, that measures should be taken to repress the pirates, were only met by the increased audacity of the Japanese raiders. In 1392 Li Sei-kei, a Korean general who had been commissioned to beat back the Japanese, raised the standard of revolt and usurped the sovereignty, changing the name of the country from Kōrai to Chōsen. He dispatched an envoy to Japan, seeking to establish amicable relations, and the Shōgun Yoshimitsu ordered Ōuchi, governor of Kiushū, to treat the delegate with all courtesy. Thereafter Japan often asked for books of various kinds and Buddhist manuscripts, and the Koreans showed the utmost goodwill in acceding to these requisitions. Nevertheless the littoral population of Japan did not desist from raiding the Korean coasts. After the union of the Northern and Southern dynasties, the ex-Shōgun Yoshimitsu frequently sent envoys to China, and on several occasions caused the pirates to be arrested and handed over to the Chinese. Much pleased at this action, the Chinese emperor sent to Japan, in 1404, a hundred tickets (_kango_) of the nature of passports, and from that time, once in every ten years, gifts were forwarded from China to a fixed number of ships with a fixed personnel, the articles sent consisting of head-gear, garments, brocade, gold, antiquities, and old pictures. Even an imperial commission of investiture was also sent, for China habitually regarded other nations as tributary to herself. Yoshimitsu seems to have condoned the nominal humiliation so long as he was certain of the gifts of the sovereign of the Middle State, but when at his death the Ming sovereign dispatched an envoy to confer on the deceased shōgun the posthumous title of _Kyōken-ō_ (the King Kyōken) and to offer various gifts, the new Shōgun Yoshimochi politely, but emphatically, declined to receive these marks of favor. This incident terminated the official intercourse between Japan and China. Trade relations, however, still continued.