At this time the great scholar Ch‘oé Ch‘i-wŭn, whom we have mentioned, was living at of Pu-sŭng. Recognizing the abyss of depravity into which the state was falling he formulated ten rules for the regulation of the government and sent them to Queen Man. She read and praised them but took no means to put them in force. Ch‘oé could no longer serve a Queen who made light of the counsels of her most worthy subjects and, throwing up his position, retired to Kwang-ju in Nam-san and became a hermit. After that he removed to Ping-san in Kang-ju, then to Ch‘ŭng-yang Monastery in Hyŭp-ju, then to Sang-gye Monastery at Ch‘i-ri San but finally made his permanent home at Ka-ya San where he lived with a few other choice spirits. It was here that he wrote his autobiography in thirteen volumes. In 896 Kung-ye began operating in the north on a larger scale. He took ten districts near Ch‘ŭl-wŭn and put them in charge of his young lieutenant Wang-gön who was destined to become the founder of a dynasty. We must now retrace our steps in order to tell of the origin of this celebrated man. Wang-yŭng, a large-minded and ambitious man, lived in the town of Song-ak. To him a son was born in the third year of King Hön-gang of Sil-la, A.D. 878. The night the boy was born a luminous cloud stood above the house and made it as bright as day, so the story runs. The child had a very high forehead and a square chin, and he developed rapidly. His birth had long since been prophesied by a monk named To-sŭn who told Wang-yŭng, as he was building his house, that within its walls a great man would be born. As the monk turned to go Wang-yŭng called him back and received from him a letter which he was ordered to give to the yet unborn child when he should be old enough to read. The contents are unknown but when the boy reached his seventeenth year the same monk reappeared and became his tutor, instructing him especially in the art of war. He showed him also how to obtain aid from the heavenly powers, how to sacrifice to the spirits of mountain and stream so as to propitiate them. Such is the tradition that surrounds the origin of the youth who now in the troubled days of Sil-la found a wide field for the display of his martial skill.