150
Notice of Japan in the Hải-kwok Tú Chr.
MARCH,
give the information.* Chin Kiá himself, on his return home, repre- sented the affair to the siunfú Cháu Tsán-lú, who addressed the Throne upon the subject. His memorial being sent to the Board of War, that office forwarded a dispatch to the king of Corea, who confined himself to rebutting as an utter fabrication what had been said of the [Corean] guides, and declared that he was uninformed of any designs [on the part of Japan] against himself †
Ping Siú-kih's first step had been to enroll the population of the towns, far and wide, as troops, and he had collected three years' pro- visions for his army, intending to lead it against China in person; but his son happened to die, and he had brothers to stand by him; on a former occasion too, he had carried off the wife of the lord of Fung- hau, and made a concubine of her, which caused him to fear that this man would do him a mischief in his absense; the towns withal were much incensed [at his system of levies], and wont to say that "the ex- pedition was not to invade China, but was a trap for their own destruc- tion;" and so universal was the disaffection, that he did not venture to march himself, but dispatched his lieutenant Tsing-ching, with a military officer named Í-chi, the Budhist priest Yuen, and Sü Tsung- yih, with a force and fleet of several hundred sail. They crossed from the island of Tuima, destroyed Kin-shán in Corea, and following up their success, pushed on to Lintsin, to which they came over in the 5th moon, when they plundered K'ái-ching, and attacking Fung-teh and other towns, in separate bodies, leveled them to the ground.
The Coreans, on the rumor of their approach, fled in confusion, and Tsing-ching and the rest pressed sore upon the royal city Li- sung, king of Corea, abandoned it, flying first to Ping-yáng, and thence to ĺ-chau, from which place he sent couriers incessantly [to China] to give intelligence of his emergency. The Japanese now entered the royal city, captured the king's wife and children, aud pursued him as far as Pingyáng, where they gave up the town to pillage, and the women to violation. In the 7th moon, the imperial commands having been issued to the Lieut.-general Tsü Ching-hiun, he went to the rescue, and fought an action with the Japanese without the walls of Ping-ngin, in which he sustained a serious defeat, barely escaping with his own life. In the 8th moon Sung Ying-ch'áng, a vice-presi- dent of the Board of War, was appointed to the chief superintendence of
a
* Or grant an investiture to the successor of the decessed sovereign.
+ The text inay mean that he was uninformed, which would be borne out by the sequel; but had this been intended by the author, I think this clause would have preceded the other.-Trans