When Kublai Khan was in the midst of his conquests in China, having already overthrown the dynasty of the Kin, and being then meditating the subjugation of the rival dynasty of the Sung, he remembered the Empire of Japan, as having been at one time in the habit of sending presents to the Tang Emperors, which those rulers accepted as tribute. At once, in 1268, he sent an arrogant letter to the Regent, demanding the submission of Japan to the rule of the Mongol Khans, and the transmission of tribute in recognition of that suzerainty. We know what was the tenour of that letter. The Mongols had for several years been sending the most insulting and arrogant epistles to the Russian princes, the Kings of Hungary and France, the Emperor of Germany, and even the Pope, and the letter to the Regent of Japan was couched in no less arrogant language than the other missives. But Hojo Tokimune was a match for the Tartar Khan (were they not all chips of the same block? and may not Japanese blood have been mixed with that of the Mongol chiefs?), and well understood the art of meeting arrogance with arrogance. The first letter was left without an answer. A second letter, sent with an embassy in 1271, was returned unopened. In 1274 Kublai sent a fleet of 150 ships, which ravaged Tsushima and Ikishima, and effected a landing at Imatsu in Chikuzen, an expedition which might have been very serious had not the Mongol commander been killed in battle and a large part of the fleet destroyed by a typhoon. Tokimune must have known by this time that he was