16 4 t h e a n n a l s o f k i n g t’a e j o
27th Day (Pyŏngja)
Chŏng Chawi, director of the Office of Guest Affairs returned after deliv-
ering 1,000 tribute horses to the authorities of Liaodong, China.28th Day (Chŏngch’uk)
When the king stayed in P’yŏngju, he performed the mourning rites for the
Chinese crown prince, leading various officials who were with him in his
temporary quarters. All the government agencies in the capital also per-
formed the mourning rituals on this day.
Kwŏn Chunghwa brought with him the rules for mourning prepared by the
Ministry of Rites (Libu) for the Korean government, which were as follows:
“1. The mourning dress should be made of hemp cloth. The fabric of the
hood should be coarse and the hood worn on top of a cap. The girdle, also
made of hemp, should be worn loosely so that it can hang down on the back-
side. The mourning headpiece made of coarse hemp can be taken off after
one hundred days.
“2. For thirteen days, music cannot be played; for three days, slaugh-
tering is prohibited; for one month, no weddings can take place; and for
thirteen days, no ancestral rites, whether they be large or small, can be per-
formed.”29th Day (Muin)
The government sent Cho Im,^175 former deputy commissioner of the Security
Council, to the Chinese capital on a mission to submit a memorial.
“Your subject So-and-So, provisional ruler of Koryŏ, submits this memo-
rial. In our country, King Kongmin passed away without leaving an heir,
and U, the son of Sin Ton, usurped the throne for fifteen years, deceiving the
people. Furthermore, in the Mujin year (1388) he recklessly raised an army
to invade Liaodong [China] and ordered me to lead the army across the Yalu
River. However, believing that it was not right for a small state such as ours
to violate the territory of the suzerain state, I persuaded my fellow com-
manders in the Great Cause to march back home immediately.
“U, at last, realized that he had made a mistake and let his son Ch’ang
succeed him. However, Ch’ang was also too foolish and weak to rule the- The name Cho Im can be read as “Cho Rim.”