He found the government in a profoundly wretched condition and he forthwith began a systematic house-cleaning. He appointed new ministers to the six departments and a proclamation was sent to the eight provinces saying that every prefect who had bought his place should be driven from office and that all the land that had been stolen from the people should be returned to them; also that every prefectural clerk should pay up the arrears of revenue which he had withheld from the government. He drew up a company of soldiers at Chong-no, the center of the city, and there executed the former favorite Yi I-ch‘ŭm and seventeen other men who had aided and abetted the deposed king in his monstrosities. Sixty more were banished to distant places where they were confined in small enclosures surrounded with brier hedges, and their food was handed them through small holes in the hedges. Pang Yŭp, the governor of P‘yŭng-an Province, and two others in the country, were executed by special messengers sent down to the country for the purpose. This Pang Yŭp was a most desperate villain. As he had something of a body-guard, resistance was anticipated, but the special messenger of death managed to draw off the guard on some pretext or other and then the work was done swiftly and surely. This governor was so detested by the people that they cut his body into small pieces and each man carried away a small piece “to remember him by.” The king made Yi Kwi General-in-chief, conferred upon his father the title of Prince Chong-wŭn and upon his mother that of Pu-pu-in and gave her a palace to live in where the government hospital now stands. He drove out from the palace all vile women, all musical instruments, and he burned at Chong-no the wooden semblance of a mountain which the former king had caused to be made and which was always carried in his procession. This “mountain” was covered with growing shrubs and flowering plants. He made Gen. Chang Man commander of all the provincial forces, with his headquarters at P’yŭng-yang. He beheaded the brother of the deposed queen and also the prefect who had suffocated the young prince at Kang-wha. Spies were sent throughout the country to ascertain the actual state of affairs.