Reforms.... eclipses.... Kitan declares war.... Koryŭ on guard.... Kitan troops cross the Yalu.... diplomacy.... Gen. Kang Cho taken.... before the emperor.... P‘yŭng-yang besieged.... the king submits.... siege of P‘yŭng-yang raised.... king moves south.... Kitan deceived.... Song-do taken.... a rebel governor.... Koryŭ’s victories.... Kitan forces retreat across the Yalu.... king returns to Song-do.... Gen. Ha Kong-jin executed.... reconstruction.... military and civil factions.... king overthrows the military faction.... Kitan invasion.... overwhelming defeat.... envoys.... Buddhism versus Confucianism.... Koryŭ on the increase.... the “Great Wall” of Koryŭ.... Buddhism flourishes.... primogeniture.... the disputed bridge.... Japanese envoys.... Buddhism rampant.... new laws.... progress of Buddhism. The first act of king Hyön-jong after announcing to Kitan his accession to the throne was to raze to the ground the palace of the queen dowager who had dragged the fair fame of Koryŭ in the mire. His next move was to build a double wall about his capital. Evidently coming events were casting ominous shadows before, and he saw the storm brewing. We should say at this point that during all these reigns the annals make careful note of every eclipse. This is brought prominently to our notice by the statement in the annals that in the sixteenth year of this reign there should have been an eclipse but that it did not take place. This throws some light upon the science of astronomy as practiced in those dark days. The common people looked upon an eclipse as an omen of evil, but this would indicate that among the educated people, then as to-day, they were understood to be mere natural phenomena. In 1010 the storm, which had already given sharp premonitions of its coming, broke in all its fury. It must have come sooner or later in any event, but the immediate pretext for it was as follows: Two Koryŭ generals, Ha Kong-jin and Yu Chŭng, who had been placed in charge of the forces in the north, when Gen. Kang-cho was recalled to the capital, took matters into their own hands and looked for no orders from headquarters. The desperate state of things at the capital partly warranted them in this, but they carried it too far. Of their own accord they attacked the eastern Yŭ-jin tribe and though they did not succeed in the attempt they impressed those people so strongly that an embassy came bringing the submission of that tribe. The two generals who seem to have partially lost their balance with the increase of their importance, wantonly killed every member of this embassy. As soon as the young king heard of this he promptly stripped them of their honors and banished them. This, however, did not mend matters with the outraged Yŭ-jin people, and they hastened to inform the Kitan emperor of the whole matter. Thereupon the proclamation went out from the Kitan capital, “Gen. Kang-cho has killed the king of Koryŭ.