Now it is not meet that a princess espouse a sea-cuny, or even a claimant of the ancient blood of Koryu, who is without power, or place, or visible symbols of rank.  So it was promulgated by imperial decree that I was a prince of Koryu.  Next, after breaking the bones and decapitating the then governor of the five provinces, himself an adherent of Chong Mong-ju, I was made governor of the seven home provinces of ancient Koryu.  In Cho-Sen seven is the magic number.  To complete this number two of the provinces were taken over from the hands of two more of Chong Mong-ju’s adherents.

Lord, Lord, a sea-cuny . . . and dispatched north over the Mandarin Road with five hundred soldiers and a retinue at my back!  I was a governor of seven provinces, where fifty thousand troops awaited me.  Life, death, and torture, I carried at my disposal.  I had a treasury and a treasurer, to say nothing of a regiment of scribes.  Awaiting me also was a full thousand of tax-farmers; who squeezed the last coppers from the toiling people.

The seven provinces constituted the northern march.  Beyond lay what is now Manchuria, but which was known by us as the country of the Hong-du, or “Red Heads.”  They were wild raiders, on occasion crossing the Yalu in great masses and over-running northern Cho-Sen like locusts.  It was said they were given to cannibal practices.  I know of experience that they were terrible fighters, most difficult to convince of a beating.

A whirlwind year it was.  While Yunsan and the Lady Om at Keijo completed the disgrace of Chong Mong-ju, I proceeded to make a reputation for myself.  Of course it was really Hendrik Hamel at my back, but I was the fine figure-head that carried it off.  Through me Hamel taught our soldiers drill and tactics and taught the Red Heads strategy.  The fighting was grand, and though it took a year, the year’s end saw peace on the northern border and no Red Heads but dead Red Heads on our side the Yalu.

I do not know if this invasion of the Red Heads is recorded in Western history, but if so it will give a clue to the date of the times of which I write.  Another clue:  when was Hideyoshi the Shogun of Japan?  In my time I heard the echoes of the two invasions, a generation before, driven by Hideyoshi through the heart of Cho-Sen from Fusan in the south to as far north as Pyeng-Yang.  It was this Hideyoshi who sent back to Japan a myriad tubs of pickled ears and noses of Koreans slain in battle.  I talked with many old men and women who had seen the fighting and escaped the pickling.

Back to Keijo and the Lady Om.  Lord, Lord, she was a woman.  For forty years she was my woman.  I know.  No dissenting voice was raised against the marriage.  Chong Mong-ju, clipped of power, in disgrace, had retired to sulk somewhere on the far north-east coast.  Yunsan was absolute.  Nightly the single beacons flared their message of peace across the land.  The Emperor grew more weak-legged and blear-eyed what of the ingenious deviltries devised for him by Yunsan.  The Lady Om and I had won to our hearts’ desires.  Kim was in command of the palace guards.  Kwan Yung-jin, the provincial governor who had planked and beaten us when we were first cast away, I had shorn of power and banished for ever from appearing within the walls of Keijo.