At that time the province of Chŭl-la contained about 190,855 _kyul_ of land, a _kyul_ being supposed to produce forty bags of rice. The revenue was set at thirteen pecks of rice from each _kyul_. The revenue from 24,084 _kyul_ was set aside for the support of the king’s relatives, royal grave-keepers and for men whom the king particularly desired to honor because of distinguished services. The revenue from the remaining 169,771 _kyul_, amounted to 147,134 bags of rice, 69,280 of which came up to the capital and 85,916 were stored for use by officials in the country. A certain amount of forest land was customarily set aside for fuel supply for the different palaces, but through maladministration these palaces each had much more forest land that it was entitled to, and as a consequence the people had to suffer. So the king ordered a redistribution of the forest lands and a correction of the fuel bill. He sent twenty bags of cotton seed into Ham-gyŭng Province, for he desired to see this useful plant grown in every one of the eight provinces. The island of Quelpart being still very wild and the people uncultivated, the king, for the first time in the history of the peninsula, made an attempt to civilize them, by offering them government offices and by establishing schools for them. He also did the same for the river towns along the Yalu. As the wild tribes of Sŏl-han and Pyŭl-hă frequently came across the border and looted the people’s houses at and near Chang-jin, a general was sent to take care of Korean interests. When 1403 scholars from the country came to the capital and memorialized the king against Song Si-ryŭl they were told that they were engaged in a mere party strife and had not the interests of the country at heart, and that if scholars meddled with the affairs of government they would be severely handled. Along the Tuman River the people were utterly ignorant, and scarcely knew whether there was a king at all; so men were sent to found schools among them and teach. Nepotism existed to such an extent, especially in connection with the government examinations, that the king decided that no relative of any of the examiners should be a candidate for honors. He established a criminal court in Seoul and took all criminal cases out of the hands of the prefects, as they often judged from prejudice rather than from the facts. He lessened by half the tax that had been levied for the making of arms. The government seized all common prostitutes and made them government slaves. Being a devout Confucianist the king commanded that the names of Confucius’ four disciples be never pronounced aloud. He diminished the garrison of Su-wŭn from 6000 to 4000 on the plea of economy. He gave presents of money to all unmarried women over thirty years of age, as some compensation for what, in Korea, is considered the hardest of hard lots. He was so affected by distress which he saw in the country during one of