Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/257

BIVAL MOGO. 233 Wooyi's lands^ and without any attempt at concealment, but Lad this year passed through a portion of his land without informing him, and had, contrary to their usage, applied to the Turks in their west for permission to pass through their land, — it looked to Wooyi as if a plot were being prepared against him, by which the Chinese would attack his south, and the Black Water Mogo his north. To forestall their supposed attack, he prepared to crush his northern neighbours The latter left a bostage in the Chinese court to prove their fidelity, and to 43ecure Chinese aid. They were all the more anxious to lean upon China, beause the fall of Qaoli and the flight of many of its people into Bohai had naturally and greatly increased the powef of the latter, and proportionately disquieted the peace of their northern kinsmea It was, therefore, no mere vanity which induced Wooyi to dismiss from his presence the imperial messen- ^r, who had come to bid him remember that it was the Tang who sent an army of 300,000 men into and swept Gaoli with the besom of destruction, while Bohai was not one-fifth as powerful as Gaoli had been, and could not stand a single day of the wrath of the Imperial Court He was aggravated still further by the report that Munyi, uncle of the chief of Heishwi Mogo, was welcomed on the border by a most friendly letter from the Chinese emperor. He ordered off Dayihia, his brother, at the head of an army, to pursue and slay Munyi ; but the latter could fly as fast as his cousin pursued, and got to the Chinese court, where he was made a Kiangkun, or general Wooyi was not to be so easily got rid of, however ; for he sent messengers at once to the Chinese court, to accuse Munyi of crimes which deserved instant death at the hands of his imperial majesty. The emperor sent Munyi secretly to Ansi, retained the messengers of Wooyi, to whom special Chinese messengers reported that Munyi had been sent off to Lingan, but had died on the road. Wooyi, aware of what had occurred, sent back the messengers, stating that he knew the truth, and again emphatically declared that Munyi was guilty and should be slain. He upbraided the emperor for lying as he had done.