an
guides, whose explanations as to why the goal had not been reached
were by no means satisfactory to Kublai. The whole party was
despatched once more to Corea, carrying with them to the King positive
instructions "to succeed better this time."

The wily King of Corea now adopted another tack. He pleaded that the
sea-route was beset with dangers to which it would be unseemly to
expose the person of an imperial envoy, but he accommodatingly sent
the Emperor's letter on to Japan by an envoy of his own. This Corean
envoy was detained half a year by the Japanese, but he had also to
return empty-handed. Meanwhile the King of Corea sent his own brother
on a special mission to Kublai, to endeavor to mollify his Tartar
majesty.

In the autumn of 1268 Hart and his former assistant colleague were
sent a third time. As a surveying party had meanwhile been examining
the sea-route by way of Quelpaert Island, the mission was enabled to
reach the Tsushima Islands this time; but the local authority would
not suffer them to land, or at least to stay, nor were the letters
accepted, as, in the opinion of the Japanese, "the phraseology was not
considered sufficiently modest." Once more the unsuccessful mission
returned to Peking, but on this occasion it was with two Japanese
"captives"--probably spies; for there is plenty of evidence that even
then the art was well understood in Japan. In the summer of 1269 it
was resolved to utilize these captives as a peg whereon to hang the
conciliatory and virtuous act of returning them. Coreans were
intrusted with this mission; but even this letter the Japanese
declined to receive, and the envoys were detained a considerable time
in the official prisons at Dazai Fu (in Chikuzen).

Early in the year 1270 a Manchu Tartar in Kublai's employ, named
Djuyaoka, who had already been employed as a kind of resident or
adviser at the court of the King of Corea, was despatched on a solemn
mission to Japan, having earnestly volunteered for his new service in
spite of his gray hairs. The King of Corea was again ordered to
assist, and a Corean in Chinese employ, named Hung Ts'a-k'iu (Marco
Polo's Von-Sanichin), was told to demonstrate with a fleet around the
Liao-Tung and Corean peninsulas. The envoy is usually called by his
adopted Chinese name of Chao Liang-Pih. The mission landed in the
spring of 1271 at an island called Golden Ford, which, according to
the Chinese characters, ought, I suppose, to be pronoun