Kung-ye was the son of King Hön-gang by a concubine. He was born on the least auspicious day of the year, the fifth of the fifth moon. He had several teeth when he was born which made his arrival the less welcome. The King ordered the child to be destroyed; so it was thrown out of the window. But the nurse rescued it and carried it to a place of safety where she nursed it and provided for its bringing up. As she was carrying the child to this place of safety she accidentally put out one of its eyes. When he reached man’s estate he became a monk under the name of Sŭn-jong. He was by nature ill fitted for the monastic life and soon found himself in the camp of the bandit Ki-whŭn at Chuk-ju. Soon he began to consider himself ill-treated by his new master and deserted him, finding his way later to the camp of the bandit Yang-gil at Puk-wŭn now Wŭn-ju. A considerable number of men accompanied him. Here his talents were better appreciated and he was put in command of a goodly force with which he soon overcame the districts of Ch‘un-ch‘ŭn, Nă-sŭng, Ul-o and O-jin. From this time Kung-ye steadily gained in power until he quite eclipsed his master. Marching into the western part of Sil-la he took ten districts and went into permanent camp. The following year another robber, Kyŭn-whŭn, made head against Sil-la in the southern part of what is now Kyŭng-sang Province. He was a Sang-ju man. Having seized the district of Mu-ju he proclaimed himself King of Southern Sil-la. His name was originally Yi but when fifteen years of age he had changed it to Kyŭn. He had been connected with the Sil-la army and had risen step by step and made himself extremely useful by his great activity in the field. When, however, the state of Sil-la became so corrupt as to be a by-word among all good men, he threw off his allegiance to her, gathered about him a band of desperate criminals, outlaws and other disaffected persons and began the conquest of the south and west. In a month he had a following of 5,000 men. He found he had gone too far in proclaiming himself King and so modified his title to that of “Master of Men and Horses.” It is said of him that once, while still a small child, his father being busy in the fields and his mother at work behind the house, a tiger came along and the child sucked milk from its udder. This accounted for his wild and fierce nature.