In the fifth year of her reign Queen Tong-man, while walking in her palace grounds, passed a pond of water but suddenly stopped and exclaimed “There is war on our western border.” When asked her reasons for thinking so she pointed to the frogs in the pond and said “See how red their eyes are. It means that there is war on the border.” As if to bear out her statement, swift messengers came the next day announcing that Păk-je was again at work along the western border. So runs the story. And so the fight went on merrily all along the line, while at the capitals of the three kingdoms things continued much as usual. Each of the countries sent Princes to China to be educated, and the diplomatic relations with China were as intimate as ever; but in 642 Păk-je made the great mistake of her life. After an unusually successful military campaign against Sil-la during which she seized forty of her frontier posts, she conceived the bright idea of cutting off Sil-la’s communication with China. The plan was to block the way of Sil-la envoys on their way to China. Thus she thought that China’s good will would be withdrawn from her rival, Sil-la. It was a brilliant plan but it had after effects which worked ruin for Păk-je. Such a momentous undertaking could not be kept from the ears of the Emperor nor could Sil-la’s envoys be thus debarred from going to the Emperor’s court. When the whole matter was therefore laid before the Chinese court the Emperor immediately condemned Păk-je in his own mind. About this time a Chinese envoy named Chin Ta-t’ok arrived on the borders of Ko-gu-ryŭ. On his way to the capital he pretended to enjoy all the views along the way and he gave costly presents to the prefects and gained from them accurate information about every part of the route. By this means he spied out the land and carried a fund of important information back to the Emperor. He advised that Ko-gu-ryŭ be invaded both by land and sea, for she would not be hard to conquer.