The king gave up entirely the wild project of assaulting China, which had been a pet scheme of his father, and he likewise found no cause for supporting such a large military retinue about his person, and they were discharged. There was a flourishing Buddhist convent just west of the Kyöng-bok Palace, in Chá-kol. The king wished to do away with it, but some objected on the ground that it formed an asylum for aged palace women, and because there were many royal tablets stored there. We may well imagine the consternation of these objectors when the king said concerning the tablets, “Well, dig a hole and bury the whole lot.” The useless custom of having masked dancers accompany the royal procession when returning from the ancestral temple was done away. The king put an end to the custom of taking girls by force and compelling them to become palace women. It must be only with the free consent of the girl’s father. He consented to send men to various places where sulphur was mined to see that the people of the surrounding country were not ill-used. At the same time he ordered that no more sulphur should be dug at Tal-sŭng-wi-gung inside the South Gate. He ordered that the tombs of the king of Koryŭ should be kept in good repair. He quelled a great popular excitement in the south, which arose from the rumor that various Buddhas in the monasteries were sweating, by showing that it was caused by the frost bringing out the moisture which had been absorbed during the rainy season. The rumor was probably false, but how politic it was to take it for granted and turn it off by giving some natural cause rather than merely to deny the rumor. He added however the command that as these Buddhas had caused such a disturbance they must be burned.