590 t h e a n n a l s o f k i n g t’a e j o
the New Year, but he sent only one of the drafters and did not send the
others, namely Chŏng Tojŏn and Chŏng Ch’ong. So I now send you again
Niu Niu, assistant director of the Seals Office, and palace attendants,
including Yang Tiemuer, Song Boluo, and Wang Li, as well as interpreter
Yang Ch’ŏmsik and attendant Kim Chang, whom you sent earlier, so that
they can bring to my court Chŏng Tojŏn and others together with the fami-
lies of Yu Ku. I will let them all live here.’ This was the sacred instruction
from the emperor. We write down the imperial message and send it to you
officially.”The king ordered all officials to gather at the palace gate every day and
escort the king, always wearing black gauze caps.13th Day (Kihae)
The king visited the Royal Ancestral Shrine and reported to his ancestors
that the Chinese emperor had proposed to establish marital relationship
with his family.The king released Yi Sŏngjung [imprisoned for failing to properly super-
vise the construction of the city walls].14th Day (Kyŏngja)
Cho Pan, assistant grand councilor of the Chancellery, was dispatched to
the Ming Capital to extend congratulations on the imperial birthday. The
government sent a letter to the Ministry of Rites, and it read as follows:
“In the eleventh month of the twenty- seventh year of the reign of Hongwu,
your servant Yi Hyŏn, vice director of the Court of Interpreters, returned
home from the Ming capital, carrying an imperial message with him. The
message read: ‘Some of the words in the memorials brought by Chosŏn
envoys are strange and unacceptable. Stop them from submitting any more
memorials.’
“When we deliberate deeply on the imperial instruction, we believe that
submitting memorials to the emperor is the least that a vassal state can do
in serving the suzerain state and showing its respect to it. Hence, on occasions
such as New Year’s Day or the imperial birthday, all the states both inside
and outside China dare not fail to submit congratulatory memorials to the
emperor. For this reason, I submitted a memorial to extend congratulations