The President left alone Mangyongdae in Pyongyang for Badaogou in China at the age of 13 and the Korean people are calling this course the 250-mile journey for national liberation.

True to the intention of his father that a man born in Korea must have a good knowledge of Korea, he came to Mangyongdae for learning early in the 1920s. Then, he received the news that his father had been arrested again by the Japanese police.

With a firm resolve to take vengeance for his father, his family and the Korean nation, he left Mangyongdae on January 22, Juche 14 (1925).

He had spent only two years back in Korea. In those days, he got a clear understanding that Japanese imperialism was the most heinous destroyer of the liberty and dignity of the Korean people and a vicious aggressor and plunderer imposing unbearable poverty and hunger upon them and came to have a firm belief that such aggressors could be driven out through a struggle only.

He arrived in Phophyong of Kim Hyong Jik County, Ryanggang Province (then Huchang County of North Phyongan Province) after the lapse of 13 days and crossed the Amnok River with a grim resolve not to return before Korea had become independent.

Remembering those days, the President in his reminiscences "With the Century" wrote as follows:

"I looked back at the mountains in the motherland over and again with sorrow and indignation. I thought: My dear Korea, I am leaving you. I know I cannot live even for a moment away from you, but I am crossing the Amnok to win you back. Across this river is a foreign land, but I will not forget you, even in there. Wait for me, my Korea."

Keeping his pledge made in his teens, the President achieved the historic cause of national liberation in August 1945 by leading the anti-Japanese revolutionary war to victory.