Soon they were all returning to Silsa, passing through the hilly forests and getting far away from the blackened lands where the rebels had passed through. There was no time to give proper burials to the fallen, and the scene of battle was left as it was in a great hurry for the cover of the trees. 

The Datars were placed at the rear, and Mingyu at the front began to relate to the other officers the happenings of the negotiations with the Sage. In fact, no negotiations had even taken place; the eunuch Jinsung never met him at all. At Yumi the embassy was stopped by a large force of the mob and wild men under Myungsu, who demanded that only the royal envoys dismount and allow themselves to be conducted to Jeongseon to meet the Sage. After a long argument which nearly turned into an armed struggle were it not for the intercession by a messenger from Minseok, it was decided that only a hundred men would be allowed to pass through with the envoys; the rest would wait at Yumi. 

But the journey to Jeongseon was a tearful one, in which at every place they stopped, in every village, they were threatened with death and met with contempt, all the more painful for the envoys bore in themselves the dignity and majesty of the Sindeok. The Prince of Bonghwa Go Yunjeong had fallen ill, as did Mingyu’s lance-bearer Choi Yena, from sleeplessness and toil. The Royal Scribe Kang Hyunggu wept over his own disgrace and that of the country. 

At Chilbong they thought their end had come. The crowd beat the ill Yena, and killed one of Mingyu’s lancers, and only the arrival of Woohyun put a stop to the intended slaughter. But Woohyun did not conduct them to Jeongseon, but instead to Kosan where they would wait for Minseok to visit them and bring them to Jeongseon. The gathered crowds inflicted great terror on the envoys by their continued presence and shouting, waiting only for the breaking of negotiations to resume the killing. Here they also witnessed the killing of prisoners of both es and every age. The killing was done in many ways: by submerging in freezing pools, by setting hungry dogs on them, by whittling them down with knives, etc. Many were also used for target practice by archers and arquebusiers. The prisoners were soldiers taken in battles as well as townspeople from all over who resisted the rebellion. The rebels had driven in entire villages and settlements — an act which Minseok did not dare to oppose, lest he obstruct the ravenous hordes from sating their gluttony. In many places the men went to the rebel camps, and as a reward their wives and children were carried away and their homes burned. The women, tattered, half-, exposed to the vile jeers of the rebels, pushed, struck, or kissed by revolting lips, they lost their memory and will. Some sobbed, some resisted loudly, some yielded passively to everything. The cracking of whips was heard amidst the flow of men, combining with the whines of children, the bellowing of cattle, and the neighing of horses. Some, drunk on melomel or wine, dressed in strange costumes — monastic robes, noble clothes, Datar coats — began to dispute, quarrel, and scream over the possession of booty, and sometimes beat each other with clubs or struck each other with sabers. Crowds of dogs which followed their masters barked and howled plaintively. 

Six such days passed before the message came from Minseok that he would not meet the envoys yet, but they would instead treat with Changmin who would convey the royal court’s terms back to him, upon which he would then think seriously about negotiations. Then came news, spread by the mob in the town, that Wu Yifan had suffered a great reverse at Taein, and had lost one of his commanders in the battle against the Prince of the Mountain. Jinsung was appalled, for the cessation of hostilities was to encourage the Sage to be open to the terms of the royal court; but Jinki evidently was not observing the truce, and was carrying