Gen. Ha Kong-jin told the king that the Kitan forces had invaded Koryŭ for the purpose of punishing Gen. Kang Bho, and as this had been accomplished all difficulty between Koryŭ and Kitan could be easily settled by a letter from the king to his northern suzerain. The letter was written and sent by the hand of a trusty man. It said that the king had left Song-do for an expedition into the country to quell certain disturbances there. When the messenger was asked how far the king had gone he answered that he had gone several thousand _li_. This seemed plausible to the Kitan court and soon its army was working its way slowly back to the boundary, the first stop being made at Ch‘ang-wha.
This retreat was more with a view to obtaining a wintering place than with a desire to favor Koryŭ, for no sooner had the next season, 1011, come than the Kitan army marched straight down through the peninsula and entered the capital and burned the palaces and most of the common houses. The king was in Kwang-ju but, learning of this disaster, he hurried still further south with his two wives to Ch‘ŭn-an in the present Ch‘ung-ch‘ŭng Province. From there he continued south to Chŭn-ju where he was treated very cavalierly by the governor who met him in common clothes and without the ceremony befitting a royal visitor. In fact this governor had determined to put the king out of the way. To this end he hired three men to go by night and assassinate him. But the door was guarded by Gen. Chi who bolted it firmly and then mounted the roof and cried loudly to all who were loyal to the king to rally round him. The next day the governor was summoned before the king. Some of the generals were clamorous for his death but Gen. Chi who was as wise as he was faithful vetoed this, for the king was not in a position to face the opposition that the execution of the governor would arouse in the province. It will be remembered that Wang-gön had left command that as the south was disaffected none of his descendants should marry among its people. This shows that the king when he went south found it unwise to exercise all the prerogatives of royalty. So the governor was left intact and the king moved further south to Na-ju.