But the dethroned king was not left entirely without help. Six of the officials conspired to assassinate the usurper at a dinner given to a Chinese envoy, but someone betrayed them to him and they were seized, tortured with red-hot irons, decapitated and dismembered. These six men were Pak P‘ăng-yŭn, Sŭng Sam-mun, Yi Gă, Ha Wi-ji, Yu Sŭng-wŭn and Yu Eung-bu. Their wives, parents and children perished with them. Chöng In-ji, one of the new king’s creatures, memorialized the throne as follows:—“All this difficulty arose about the ex-king. He should therefore be put to death.” This was rather more than the king dared to do but the unfortunate boy was banished to Yong-wŭl in Kang-wŭn Province. His brother Yu was also banished at the same time. The banished king lived beside a mountain stream and is said to have sung this plaintive song to it: A long, long road, a long good-bye. I know not which way to turn. I sit beside the stream and its waters, like me, mourn. And together we weep without ceasing. At last when the time seemed ripe, another of Tan-jong’s uncles memorialized the throne urging that the banished boy be put to death so that there might be no more cause for conspiracy on the part of any of the officials. With apparent reluctance the king gave orders that Gen. Wang Pang-yŭn be detailed to go and administer poison to the boy. When that official arrived at the place of banishment his hardihood failed him and instead of giving the boy the poison he prostrated himself before him. The ex-king exclaimed, “What brings you here?” but before answer could be given a man named Kong Sang came up behind the banished king and strangled him with a cord. The story runs that as the murderer turned to leave the room blood burst from his ears, eyes, nose and mouth and that he fell dead beside the body of his victim. The few palace women who remained in the suite of the banished king threw themselves into the stream and perished. The body of the young king would have remained unburied had not a man named Om Heung-do taken pity on the murdered boy and buried him in Tong-eul-ji. The night the boy was murdered the usurper dreamed that the dead mother of his victim came from the grave, and, standing beside his couch, pronounced the following malediction: “You have stolen the throne and killed my son. Your’s too shall die.” It is said that when he awoke he found that the prophecy had already been fulfilled. He therefore dug up the bones of this prophetess of evil and scattered them upon the water of the river. Tradition says that the next seven magistrates who were appointed to the district where this foul murder was perpetrated died on the very night of their arrival. The eighth made it his first duty to go to the grave of the murdered king and sacrifice before it and write an elegy upon him. From that time there was no more trouble.