Sim Yu-gyŭng should accompany So Sŭ-bi back to Korea and there confer with the Japanese leaders and then arrangements can be made for investing the king of Japan.” The emperor so ordered and at the same time appointed Yi Chong-sŭng as envoy extraordinary to Japan to perform the ceremony of investiture. Yang Pang-hyŭng was appointed his second. These events all occurred in the latter part of the year 1593. As the new year opened the political sky was dark enough. Not only were the Japanese intrenched in the south but predatory bands infested the country and the government troops had all they could do to hold them in check, let alone any offensive operations against the Japanese. However, after a hard chase a large band of the miscreants were brought to bay at Hoe-mun Mountain and cut to pieces. At this time also the king sent again to Nanking asking that his successor be nominated, but again he was refused. The career of Gen. Kim Tŭk-nyŭng whom, as we have seen, the Japanese had dubbed “The Flying General,” affords us another example of the fatal weakness of Korea, in the envy excited against any really successful man; for even while Gen. Kim was successfully combatting the Japanese in his own way, his very successes aroused the spleen of Gen. Yun Keun-su who accused him to the king of having killed plenty of Koreans, but never a Japanese. On the strength of this groundless charge, and without questioning its truth, the king brought Gen. Kim to Seoul and imprisoned him a year. And so a man of highest loyalty, of such unselfish patriotism as to devote the whole of his private fortune to the fitting out of soldiers to fight his country’s foes, was dragged away from a successful field of work to languish in prison, simply because a less successful man begrudged him his fame. And now began an amusing comedy between the Chinese, who took the Japanese seriously, and the latter who were merely playing off the Chinese in order to save time.