The Mongol and Koryŭ envoys, upon reaching the Japanese capital, were treated with marked disrespect. They were not allowed to enter the gates, but were lodged at a place called T‘ă-jă-bu, outside the west gate of the city. There they remained five months, and their entertainment was of the poorest quality. And at last they were dismissed without receiving any answer either to the emperor or to the king. Kublai Khan was not the kind of a man to relish this sort of treatment and when he heard the story he sent a messenger straight to Koryŭ telling the king “I have decided to invade Japan. You must immediately begin the building of one thousand boats. You must furnish four thousand bags of rice and a contingent of 40,000 troops.” The king replied that this was beyond his power, for so many of the people had run away that workmen could not be secured in sufficient numbers. The emperor, however, was resolute and soon sent an envoy to see if his orders were being carried out, and to make a survey of the straits between Koryŭ and Japan, in the vicinity of Heuk-san Island. The emperor could scarcely believe that the Japanese would dare to treat his envoy so disrespectfully as had been reported and he suspected that it was some sort of ruse that the king of Koryŭ had been playing on him; so he decided to send his envoy Heuk Chŭk once more to Japan. This time also he was accompanied by a Koryŭ envoy, Sim Sa-jŭn. Meantime Kim Chun finding that his foul murder of the Mongol envoy went unpunished, became prouder and more headstrong. His son stole two boatloads of vegetables intended for the king’s own table. This roused the ire of the king. Kim Chun might kill all the Mongol envoys he wished but when it came to stealing from the king’s table something must be done. There was only one official, Im Yun, who hated Kim Chun worse than he feared him and the king selected this man for the work in hand. Sending away all the other officials to a neighboring monastery to sacrifice to Buddha for his health, he summoned Kim Chun and, when he had him at his mercy, let Im Yun fall upon him with a club and take his life. Kim Chun’s brother likewise fell the same day and the household of the offender was broken up. The usual impotence of the king was illustrated here by the very trick to which he was forced in order to rid himself of his traitorous subject. The spring of 1268 opened, and still the envoys had not returned from Japan. The Koryŭ people managed to capture some Japanese from Tsushima who had come near the Korean coast. They were sent to Peking together with an envoy. The emperor was delighted, showed the captives all over the palace and reviewed the army before them. After showing them all the grandeur of the Mongol court, he sent them back to tell their king about it and to urge him to make friends with the great Yuan empire. This same year the crown prince went to the Mongol court.