Book Two卷二

In the twelfth month Ming raised a great army, making Song Yingchang (宋應昌), Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of War (兵部), the military commissioner (經略), and making Liu Huangshang (劉黃裳), vice director of the Ministry of War, and Yuan Huang (袁黃), a director (主事), assistants for military affairs (贊畫軍務), stationed at Liaodong (遼東). Commander-in-chief Li Rusong (李如松) was made the great general, leading the commanders of the three camps — Li Rubai (李如柏), Zhang Shijue (張世爵), and Yang Yuan (楊元) — and the southern commanders Luo Shangzhi (駱尙志), Wu Weizhong (吳惟忠), Wang Bidi (王必廸), and the rest, to cross the river; and the troops were somewhat more than forty thousand.

After Shen Weijing (沈惟敬) had gone away before this, the Wa did indeed draw in their troops and did not move. But when fifty days had passed and Weijing did not come, the Wa grew suspicious and boasted that in the new year they would water their horses at the Amnok. Those who escaped from the enemy camp all said the enemy were greatly putting in order their gear for attacking walls, so that men feared the more. At the beginning of the twelfth month Weijing came again and went once more inside the walls and lodged some days and made their pledges anew and went; what words were spoken was not made known.

At this time the army reached Anju (安州) and camped south of the walls, and their banners and arms were ordered as though by a spirit. I asked leave to see the commander-in-chief and report upon affairs, and the commander-in-chief, who was in the east hall, bade me come in; and I saw that he was a man of open bearing. A chair was set and we sat facing each other. I drew from my sleeve a map of Pyeongyang and pointed out to him the lie of the ground and the roads by which the troops should enter, and the commander-in-chief listened with his ear turned to me and from time to time marked the spot with a red brush. Then he said, "The Wa trust in nothing but the musket. We use cannon, and all of them carry more than five or six li; how should the enemy withstand it?"

After I had withdrawn, the commander-in-chief wrote a poem on a fan and sent it to me.

Leading the troops under the stars, we crossed the riverside through the night, because they say the land of Samhan is not yet at peace. The bright sovereign hangs out word of the banners day by day; this lowly subject has let go the pleasure of the cup at night. Though spring has come, the spirit for the fight keeps the heart stout; at this march the baleful air is already chilled to the bone. Though we talk and laugh, how should it be said there is no plan to win? Even in dreams I think always of mounting the saddle on the field.

At this time the Ming troops filled the walled town, and I was at the Baeksang Pavilion (百祥樓). In the middle of the night a man of Ming suddenly came and showed me three articles of the army's secret covenant; and when I asked his name he did not say it and went away.

The commander-in-chief sent Vice Regional Commander Zha Dashou (査大受) ahead to Sunan (順安) to deceive the Wa with these words: "Ming has already allowed the peace, and Skirmish Commander Shen comes at once." The Wa were glad. Genso (玄蘇) made a poem and presented it.

Fusang (扶桑) has ceased its fighting and submits to China (中華); the four seas and the nine provinces have become one household. A joyful air of a sudden melts the snow beyond the sky, and spring comes early to heaven and earth, and the flower of great peace opens.

It was the first day of the first month of the Gyesa year.

The Wa had their minor commander Hira Yoshikan (平好官) lead some twenty and more Wa soldiers out to Sunan to meet Skirmish Commander Shen. Regional Commander Zha drew him on and drank with him, then raised the troops he had hidden and fell upon them, so that Hira Yoshikan was taken alive and the Wa who had come with him were cut down almost to a man, and only three slipped away and fled. Among the enemy it was known at last that the army had come, and there was a great stir.

At this time the great army had already reached Sukcheon (肅川), and as the day drew in they were just pitching camp and cooking their rice when the word arrived. The commander-in-chief drew his bow and made the string sound, and at once led some horsemen and galloped to Sunan, and camp after camp set out behind him. The next morning they advanced and ringed Pyeongyang and struck at the Botong Gate (普通門) and the Chilseong Gate (七星門). The enemy went up on the walls and set out their red and white banners firmly in ranks and stood against them. The Ming troops struck with cannon and fire arrows, and the sound of the guns shook the earth so that the hills for tens of li all moved. The fire arrows lay across the sky as though woven on a loom, and smoke covered the heavens, and the arrows went inside the walls and fires rose in place after place until even the woods were burnt.

Luo Shangzhi, Wu Weizhong, and the rest led their own troops and clung to the wall like ants and climbed it, and when one in front fell the man behind went up, and not one drew back. The enemy's swords and spears hung from the parapets like a hedgehog's bristles. The Ming troops fought the harder, and the enemy could not hold and drew back into the inner wall; and of those cut down and burnt the dead were very many. The Ming troops entered the walls and struck at the inner wall. The enemy had raised an earthen wall above the rampart and bored it with countless holes, so that to look at it was like a hornets' nest, and from those holes they shot their bullets wildly, so that many of the Ming troops were hurt. The commander-in-chief, fearing that robbers driven into a corner would fight to the death, drew the troops outside the walls and opened them a road to flee by. That night the enemy crossed the river upon the ice and fled.

Before this, while I was at Anju and heard that the great army would soon come out, I secretly informed Yi Sieon (李時言) and Kim Gyeongno (金敬老), defense commanders of Hwanghae Province, to block the enemy's road of return, and charged them thus: "Let the two forces lie in ambush beside the road and wait for the enemy to pass, and then follow at their heels. The enemy will be fleeing hungry and spent and will have no heart to fight, so they can all be bound." Sieon came at once to Junghwa (中和), but Gyeongno made excuse of other business. I sent the officer Kang Deokgwan (姜德寬) again to press him, and Gyeongno too came to Junghwa unwillingly. But one day before the enemy withdrew he made excuse of a dispatch from Yu Yeonggyeong (柳永慶), the inspector of Hwanghae Province, and went back to Jaeryeong (載寧). At that time Yeonggyeong was at Haeju (海州) and meant to guard his own body, and Gyeongno shrank from fighting the enemy and so turned aside.

The enemy commanders Hira Yukinaga (平行長), Hira Yoshitoshi (平義智), Genso, Hira Shigenobu (平調信), and the rest led the remnant of their host and fled night after night; their strength was spent and their feet blistered so that they limped as they walked, and some crawled among the fields pointing at their mouths and begging for food. From our country not one man went out to strike them, and the Ming troops did not pursue them either. Only Yi Sieon followed at their heels, but he dared not close with them, and cut down no more than some sixty who had fallen behind, hungry and sick.

At this time the Wa commander who was in the capital was Hira Hideie (平秀嘉), a nephew of the kanpaku, though some say a son-in-law. He was young in years and could not take charge of affairs, so Yukinaga held the military business, and Kiyomasa (淸正) was in Hamgyeong Province and had not yet come back. Had Yukinaga, Yoshitoshi, Genso, and the rest been taken alive, the enemy in the capital would have crumbled of themselves; and had the capital crumbled, Kiyomasa's road of return would have been cut, and his army's heart would have been startled and afraid and they would surely have fled along the road and yet not got away. The enemy camps south of the Han River too would have crumbled in their turn, and the Ming troops, beating their drums and advancing slowly, had only to go straight to Busan and drink their fill of wine. In a little while the seas and hills would have been made clean; how then should we have been in disorder for some years? Because one man did not do as he was bidden, the affair came to hang upon the whole realm; it is truly to be lamented.

I sent up a dispatch asking that Kim Gyeongno be beheaded. I was the inspector-general of Pyeongan Province, so Gyeongno was not under my charge, and therefore I first asked leave. The court sent the royal messenger Yi Sunil (李純一) with a tally of authority (標信) to Gaeseong to behead him, but word was given to the commander-in-chief first. The commander-in-chief said, "His guilt deserves death, but the enemy are not yet done away with and one fighting man is to be grudged. For the present let him follow the army in white clothes and make merit to redeem his guilt." Then he drew up a dispatch (咨文) and gave it to Sunil to take.

Yi Il (李鎰), the frontier commander, was removed and Yi Bin (李薲) put in his place.

In the fighting at Pyeongyang the Ming troops went in by the Botong Gate, and Yi Il and Kim Eungseo (金應瑞) and the rest went in by the Hamgu Gate (含毬門). When the troops were drawn off they all withdrew outside the walls and camped, and that the enemy fled in the night was not known until the next morning. Commander-in-chief Li blamed our troops, saying that they had not been careful in their watch and did not even know the enemy was fleeing. Thereupon the Ming commanders who had come and gone at Sunan and were friendly with Yi Bin vied in saying that Yi Il was no vessel for a commander and that it must be Yi Bin and none other. The commander-in-chief sent a dispatch making the case known, and the court sent Yun Dusu (尹斗壽), the Right State Councillor, to Pyeongyang to question Yi Il's guilt and would have used the law of the army upon him, but after a good while let him go. Then Yi Bin was put in Yi Il's place, and three thousand horsemen were picked to follow the commander-in-chief southward.

Commander-in-chief Li moved his troops out to Paju (坡州) and fought the enemy south of Byeokje (碧蹄), but did not win, and went back to Gaeseong and camped.

At the first, when Pyeongyang was recovered, the enemy camps along the road south of the Daedong all fled. The commander-in-chief, meaning to pursue the enemy, said to me, "The great army is just now going forward, but they say there is no grain or fodder on the road ahead. The state councillor is already a great minister; he should think of the country's business and not shrink from the labor, but go in haste and make the army grain ready, that nothing be spoiled."

I took my leave and came out. At that time the van of the Ming troops had already crossed the Daedong and gone south, and their tangled ranks blocked the road so that I could not pass. I went round and round by byways and hurried out ahead of the army, and entering Junghwa by night came to Hwangju (黃州) at the third watch. At that time the enemy troops had just withdrawn, so that the whole road was empty and the people had not gathered, and there was nothing to be done. In haste I sent a dispatch to Yu Yeonggyeong, governor of Hwanghae, to press the carrying on, and sent another dispatch to Yi Wonik (李元翼), governor of Pyeongan, to pick out from the troops led by Kim Eungseo and the rest those who could not go into battle, and have them carry loads from Pyeongyang and follow and bring them as far as Hwangju. I also had the grain of three districts of Pyeongan Province loaded into boats and moved from Cheongnyongpo (靑龍浦) into Hwanghae Province. The thing had not been prepared beforehand but came on suddenly, and the great army was arriving behind, so that I burned with fear and wrung my heart lest the army's supplies fall short. Yeonggyeong had a fair store laid by, but in fear of the enemy he had scattered it in the mountain valleys; and when the people were pressed to bring it in, it came about that there was no lack at any stage of the road.

Presently the great army entered Gaeseong. On the twenty-fourth day of the first month the enemy, suspecting that our people would answer from within, and resenting their defeat at Pyeongyang, killed all the people inside the capital and burnt nearly all the houses, public and private. And the enemy who had been strung out along the western road all gathered in the capital and plotted to block the royal troops.

I asked the commander-in-chief again and again to advance quickly, and after hanging back for several days he advanced as far as Paju. The next day Vice Regional Commander Zha Dashou, together with our commander Go Eonbaek (高彥伯), led several hundred troops and went ahead to look at the enemy's state, and meeting the enemy at Yeoseok Pass (礪石嶺) south of Byeokje Station they cut down more than a hundred heads. When the commander-in-chief heard this he left the great army and galloped off alone with no more than a thousand and some mounted retainers (家丁). As he passed Hyeeum Pass (惠陰嶺) his horse stumbled and he fell to the ground, and his men together held him up and raised him.

At that time the enemy had hidden a great host behind Yeoseok Pass and set no more than a few hundred on the ridge. The commander-in-chief looked at them and divided his troops into two wings to advance, and the enemy too came down from the ridge and drew nearer and nearer. Then the enemy who were behind came up suddenly from the back of the hill and camped on the hill, and they were near ten thousand. The Ming troops looked at them and were afraid in their hearts, but the blades were already crossed and there was no undoing it.

At that time the troops the commander-in-chief led were all horsemen of the north and had no firearms, carrying only short, dull swords; while the enemy used foot soldiers whose blades were all three or four feet long and sharp beyond compare. In the clash of battle they slashed to left and right, so that men and horses alike went down and there was none who could stand against that edge. The commander-in-chief, seeing that his case was perilous, called up the rear force, but before it arrived the van had already broken and the dead and wounded were very many. The enemy too drew in their troops and did not press the pursuit.

As the day drew in, the commander-in-chief went back to Paju. He hid the defeat, but his spirit was much broken, and in the night he wailed aloud over the retainers he had trusted who had died fighting.

The next day he was for drawing the troops back to Dongpa (東坡), so I came beneath his tent together with Yu Hong (俞泓), the Right State Councillor, Kim Myeongwon (金命元), the commander-in-chief of our forces, Yi Bin, the frontier commander, and the rest. The commander-in-chief came out and stood outside the tent, and his several commanders stood to left and right. I argued hard, saying, "Winning and losing are common things in the handling of troops. We should look to the situation and advance again; why would you move so lightly?" The commander-in-chief said, "Our troops killed many of the enemy yesterday, so there is nothing unprofitable in it. Only, this ground has had rain and become mire and is not convenient for troops to stay in, so I would go back to Dongpa and rest the troops and then advance and strike."

As I and the others argued stubbornly, the commander-in-chief brought out and showed us the draft of the memorial (奏本) he was to send up to the emperor. In it were the words, "The enemy troops in the capital are more than two hundred thousand, and few troops cannot stand against them," and at the end, "Your servant's illness is grave; let another man be put in his charge." Startled, I pointed with my hand and said, "The enemy troops are very few; how should they be two hundred thousand?" The commander-in-chief said, "How should I know? It is what the men of your country said." It was an excuse.

Among his commanders Zhang Shijue was the keenest in urging the commander to draw the troops back, and when we argued stubbornly and would not withdraw, he kicked Yi Bin, the frontier commander, and scolded him to get back. His voice and face were both fierce.

At this time a great rain went on for some days, and besides, the enemy had burnt along the roadside so that the hills were all bare and there was not a blade of grass. Moreover a pestilence went among the horses, and within a few days those that fell dead came to near ten thousand head.

On this day the three camps crossed back over the Imjin and camped before Dongpa Station. The next day, when they would go from Dongpa back to Gaeseong again, I argued hard once more. "If the great army withdraws once, the enemy's spirit will grow the more arrogant, and far and near all will be startled and afraid, so that even north of the Imjin cannot be held. I beg you to stay a little and move as you see an opening." The commander-in-chief gave a show of consenting. When I had withdrawn he mounted his horse and went back to Gaeseong after all, and camp after camp withdrew to Gaeseong. Only Vice Regional Commander Zha Dashou and some hundreds of the troops of Skirmish Commander Mu Chengxuan (母承宣) held the Imjin.

I stayed on at Dongpa and day by day sent men to ask that he advance again. The commander-in-chief answered carelessly, "When the weather clears and the roads dry I shall advance"; but in truth he had no mind to advance.

The great army had long been at Gaeseong, and the army grain was already spent. Only by the water road was millet and fodder scraped together from Ganghwa (江華), and the tax grain of Chungcheong and Jeolla was shipped in and arrived little by little, but it was gone as fast as it came, and the case grew more pressing.

One day the several commanders made the exhaustion of the army grain their excuse for asking the commander-in-chief to turn the troops back. The commander-in-chief in anger called me, with Yi Seongjung (李誠中), the Minister of Taxation, and Yi Yeonhyeong (李延馨), governor of the left circuit of Gyeonggi, and made us kneel beneath his steps and scolded us in a loud voice and would have used the law of the army upon us. I begged pardon without ceasing, and thinking how the country's business had come to this pass I wept without knowing it. The commander-in-chief took pity, and then turned his anger upon his commanders and said, "In former days, when you followed me to strike Xixia (西夏), the troops went unfed for many days and still did not dare to speak of going back, and so in the end a great deed was done. Now, because Joseon has happened to fail of a few days' grain, how do you dare to say out of hand that the troops should turn back? Go, if you would go. I will not go back until the enemy are done away with, though my corpse be wrapped in a horse's hide." The commanders all bowed their heads and begged pardon.

I came out of the gate and had Sim Yegyeom (沈禮謙), the administrator (經歷) of Gaeseong, beaten with the rod for not bringing out the grain in time. Then some tens of grain boats came from Ganghwa to the back of Seogang (西江), and we barely came through safe. That evening the commander-in-chief had Regional Commander Zhang Shijue call me to comfort me, and also took counsel about the business of war.

The commander-in-chief went back to Pyeongyang. At that time the enemy commander Kiyomasa was still in Hamgyeong Province, and someone passed on word that Kiyomasa meant to cross from Hamheung over Yangdeok (陽德) and Maengsan (孟山) and strike Pyeongyang. At that time the commander-in-chief had a mind to go back north but had found no occasion, so taking this for his pretext he said, "Pyeongyang is the root; if it is not held, the great army has no road of return. It cannot be left unsuccored"; and so he turned his troops and went back to Pyeongyang, leaving Wang Bidi to hold Gaeseong. And to Yi Deokhyeong (李德馨), the envoy-attendant, he said, "The Joseon troops are lonely in their case and without support; they should all go back north of the river."

At this time Gwon Yul (權慄), the inspector of Jeolla, was at Haengju (幸州) in Goyang, Yi Bin the frontier commander at Paju, Go Eonbaek and Yi Sieon and the rest at Haeyu Pass (蠏踰嶺), the commander-in-chief Kim Myeongwon at the Imjin, and I at Dongpa. The commander-in-chief said so for fear that the enemy would take the opening.

I sent the aide Sin Gyeongjin (辛慶晉) hurrying to see the commander-in-chief and set before him five reasons why the troops must not be drawn back. "The tombs of the former kings are all within Gyeonggi and have fallen into the enemy's lair, so that the longing of spirits and of men is keen and they cannot bear to be abandoned: this is the first. The people left south of Gyeonggi look day by day for the royal troops, and if they suddenly hear word of a withdrawal they will have no mind to hold firm again but will lead one another over to the enemy: this is the second. Not a foot nor an inch of our country's land can lightly be given up: this is the third. Our commanders and troops, weak though their strength be, are just now leaning upon the Ming troops and planning to advance together, and if once they hear the order to withdraw they will surely all resent it and scatter: this is the fourth. And once there is a withdrawal, if the enemy take advantage from behind, even north of the Imjin cannot be held: this is the fifth." The commander-in-chief kept silent and then went away.

Gwon Yul (權慄), the inspector of Jeolla Province, broke the enemy at Haengju (幸州) and moved his troops to Paju.

Before this Gwon Yul, being magistrate of Gwangju, took Yi Gwang's (李洸) place as inspector and led his troops up to the aid of the sovereign; and taking warning from the defeat of Yi Gwang and the rest in open battle, he came to Suwon and held the Dokseong Mountain Fortress (禿城山城), so that the enemy dared not strike. Hearing that the Ming troops would soon enter the capital, he crossed the river and camped at the Haengju mountain fortress. At this time the enemy came out in force from the capital and struck, and his camp was in a stir and would have scattered; but with the river behind them there was no road to flee by, so of necessity they went back into the fortress and fought with all their strength. The arrows poured like rain. The enemy divided into three camps and came on in turn, but all were beaten. As it happened the day drew in and the enemy went back to the capital. Gwon Yul had his troops gather the enemy's corpses, and tear the limbs apart and hang them scattered on the trees of the wood, to work off their rage.

Presently, hearing that the enemy would come out again and were bent on revenge, he was much afraid, and pulled down the stockade of his camp and led his troops to the Imjin and followed the commander-in-chief Kim Myeongwon.

When I heard of this I rode alone and went up to the Paju mountain fortress and looked at the lie of it; and it blocked the neck of the high road, and the ground besides was steep and fit to be held. At once I had Gwon Yul and Yi Bin, the frontier commander, join their troops and hold it, to keep the enemy from coming down westward. Go Eonbaek and Yi Sieon, the defense commanders, and Jeong Huirip (鄭希立) and Bak Myeonghyeon (朴名賢), the auxiliary commanders, and the rest were made raiding troops and set to block Haeyu Pass; and Bak Yuin (朴惟仁), Yun Seonjeong (尹先正), and Yi Sanhwi (李山輝), commanders of righteous troops, and the rest were to go along the right-hand road and lie in ambush between Changneung (昌陵) and Gyeongneung (敬陵), each with his own troops showing himself and hiding again and falling upon them. If the enemy came out in numbers they were to avoid them and not fight; if few came out, they were to meet and strike them wherever they went. From this time the enemy could not come out of the walls to cut wood, and their horses that died were very many.

I also had Kim Cheonil (金千鎰), commissioner for raising righteous troops, Yi Bin (李蘋), naval commander of Gyeonggi, and Jeong Geol (丁傑), naval commander of Chungcheong, and the rest take boats and move upon Yongsan (龍山) and Seogang, to divide the enemy's strength. Heo Uk (許頊), the inspector of Chungcheong Province, was at Yangseong (陽城), and he was to go back and hold his own province, to be ready against the enemy's striking southward. Dispatches were sent also to those who led the royal troops and the righteous troops of Gyeonggi, Chungcheong, and Gyeongsang, that each should stay in his own place and block and cut the enemy's roads to left and right. Yi Yeoyang (李汝讓), magistrate of Yanggeun, was set to hold Yongjin (龍津).

The enemy heads that the several commanders cut were all hung outside the south gate of Gaeseong. Lü Yingzhong (呂應鍾), the commander-in-chief's staff officer (參軍), saw them and said gladly, "The men of Joseon now cut off enemy heads as one slices a melon."

One day the enemy came out in force by the east gate and searched the hills, going from Yangju (楊州) and Jeokseong (積城) as far as Daetan (大灘), but got nothing. Zha Dashou, fearing that the enemy would come and strike, sent word to me: "A scout has come and says the enemy mean to take Regional Commander Zha and Inspector-General Yu. Would it not be well to withdraw to Gaeseong for a while?" I answered, "What the scout says seems unlikely. The enemy are just now suspicious that the great army is staying near, so how should they dare lightly to cross the river? If we move once, the hearts of the people will surely be shaken; it is better to wait quietly." Zha Dashou laughed and said, "Those words are quite right. Even should the enemy come, I will share death and life with the inspector-general; how should I dare go alone?" Then he divided off some tens of the brave men he led and sent them to guard me; and though the rain came down hard they kept guard all night and were not slack for a moment, and only left off when they heard that the enemy had gone back into the walls.

Afterward the enemy found out that Gwon Yul was at Paju, and meaning to take revenge they led a great force out by the western road and came to Gwangtan (廣灘). It was a place some li from the mountain fortress, and there they halted their troops and did not advance. From midday until dusk they did not strike, and went back again, and afterward did not come out any more. It was because the enemy had looked over the lie of the ground and seen that the place Gwon Yul held was steep.

I sent a letter to Wang Bidi, saying, "The enemy are just now holding a steep place, and truly they are not easy to strike. The great army should advance and stay at Dongpa and Paju and tread on their tail and tie them down; and if ten thousand of the southern troops were picked and sent out from Ganghwa to the south of the Han River to take the opening the enemy do not look for and break their several camps, then the enemy in the capital would have their road of return cut and would surely flee to Yongjin. If then the rear force fell upon the several fords, they could be swept away at one stroke." Wang Bidi slapped his knee and called it a remarkable plan, and sent thirty-six scouts hurrying to the camp of Yi Sangyeom (李山謙), commander of righteous troops in Chungcheong Province, to look at the enemy's state. At that time the enemy's keen troops were all in the capital, and the camps behind were all lean and spent and few; so the scouts came back leaping for joy and said, "Ten thousand are not needed; two or three thousand can break them." But Commander-in-chief Li was a commander of the north, and in this campaign he kept the southern troops much held down, and grudging that they should make the merit he would not allow it in the end.

Leave was asked to give out the grain left over from the army stores and save the starving people, and the sovereign allowed it.

At that time the enemy had held the capital for two years already, so that for a thousand li where their blade had reached it was desolate, and the people could not plow and sow, and the starved were almost all. The people left inside the walls, hearing that I was at Dongpa, came holding one another up and carrying loads on head and back, beyond counting. Regional Commander Zha, seeing on the road at Masan (馬山) a little child crawling to suck at its dead mother's breast, took pity and took it up and reared it in the camp, and said to me, "The Japanese have not yet withdrawn and the people are like this; what is to be done?" Then he sighed and said, "Heaven grieves and earth is in anguish." Hearing it, I wept without knowing it.

At that time the great army would come again, so the grain boats that had come from the south were all drawn up along the riverside, but none dared be used for anything else. As it happened An Minhak (安敏學), the recruiting officer of Jeolla Province, had gathered a thousand seok of unhulled grain and brought it by boat. I was very glad and at once sent up a dispatch asking leave to save the starving people with it. Namgung Je (南宮悌), a former magistrate, was made relief superintendent, and pine needles were ground to meal, and to ten parts of pine-needle meal one part of rice flour was mixed, to be stirred in water and drunk. The people were many and the grain little, and those saved were not many. The Ming commanders also took pity and spared thirty seok of their own army grain and shared it out, but it did not reach one in a hundred.

One night a great rain fell, and the starving people made a sound of sorrowful moaning at my side that could not bear the hearing. Rising in the morning I saw that those who lay dead here and there were very many.

Kim Seongil (金誠一), governor of the right circuit of Gyeongsang, also sent Yi Ro (李魯), a former academic officer (典籍), to let me know of his straits. "We would release the grain of the left circuit of Jeolla to save the starving people and to serve as seed for the spring plowing, but Choe Cheolgyeon (崔鐵堅), the provincial aide of Jeolla, will not lend it." At that time Kim Chan (金瓉), a senior officer, was in Hoseo as deputy inspector-general, so I at once sent Chan a dispatch to hurry down into Jeolla Province, open the storehouses of Namwon and such places, and move ten thousand seok to Yeongnam for relief.

In general, from the capital to the farthest south the enemy troops lay athwart and pierced the land, and the season was just the fourth month, yet the people had all gone up into the hills and into the valleys and there was nowhere a stalk of barley planted. Had the enemy not withdrawn for a few months more, every living thing would have been gone.

Skirmish Commander Shen Weijing went into the capital again and drew the enemy on to withdraw their troops. On the seventh day of the fourth month the commander-in-chief led his troops back from Pyeongyang to Gaeseong.

Before this there was in Kim Cheonil's camp one Yi Sinchung (李藎忠), who asked of himself to go into the capital and look at the enemy's state. He saw the two princes and Hwang Jeongwuk (黃廷彧), Lord of Janggye, and the rest, and came back and said the enemy had a mind for peace. Presently the enemy threw a letter to the naval troops at Yongsan begging for peace, and Cheonil sent me that letter. I thought that the commander-in-chief had no mind to fight any longer, and that if he meant to drive the enemy off on this pretext he might come back to Gaeseong, and the affair might thereby be brought to an end; so I showed the letter to Zha Dashou. Zha Dashou at once had his retainer Li Qing (李慶) hurry to Pyeongyang and make it known.

Thereupon the commander-in-chief sent Weijing again. Kim Myeongwon saw Weijing and said, "The enemy resent being deceived at Pyeongyang and must surely harbor an ill purpose; why would you go in again?" Weijing said, "They were beaten because they did not withdraw quickly of themselves; what has it to do with me?" Then he went in among the enemy and stayed. What words were spoken was not made known, but in general he pressed them, saying that only after the princes and the vassals were sent back and the troops drawn off to Busan would peace be allowed. The enemy asked leave to accept that covenant. The commander-in-chief then came back to Gaeseong.

I sent up a letter to the commander-in-chief saying with all earnestness that peace was no plan and that it was better to strike. The commander-in-chief wrote back, "This is to have found beforehand what is in my own mind," but he had no mind to take it up and use it. He also sent Zhou Hongmo (周弘謨), a skirmish general, to the enemy camp. Kim, the commander-in-chief of our forces, and I happened to be in Gwon Yul's camp and met him at Paju, and Hongmo bade us bow to the banner-tally (旗牌). I said, "This is a banner-tally going into the camp of the Wa; how should I bow to it? And besides, the paiwen (牌文) of Vice Minister Song forbidding us to kill the enemy is attached to it, so it can the less be honored." Hongmo pressed me three or four times, but I did not answer and mounted my horse and went back to Dongpa. Hongmo sent a man to inform the commander-in-chief, and the commander-in-chief was greatly angered and said, "The banner-tally is the emperor's command. Even the northern barbarians (㺚子) bow when they see it, by the rule; how then does he not bow? I will use the law of the army, and then turn my troops back." Yi Deokhyeong, the envoy-attendant, hurriedly let me know: "You cannot but come tomorrow and beg pardon."

The next day Kim and I went to Gaeseong and came to the gate and gave in our names. The commander-in-chief was angry and would not see us. When Kim would have withdrawn I said, "The commander-in-chief is sounding us; let us wait a while." A fine rain was falling then, and we two stood outside the gate with our hands joined. Presently a man of the commander-in-chief's came out to the gate and peered at us and went in, twice over; and a little after we were bidden to come in. The commander-in-chief stood upon the hall floor. I came forward and made my bow and begged pardon, saying, "Foolish as this small man is, how should he not know that the banner-tally is to be revered? Only, beside the banner-tally there was a paiwen keeping the men of our country from killing the enemy, and grieving at it in my heart I did not dare to bow; there is no way to clear myself of the guilt." The commander-in-chief took on a shamed look and said, "Those words are quite right. The paiwen is Vice Minister Song's order and no business of mine." Then he said, "There is much talk going about of late. If the vice minister hears that a vassal did not bow to the banner-tally and says I covered it up and did not question it, he will surely blame me as well. Draw up a writing setting out the case in outline and bring it. If the vice minister finds fault with me I shall clear it with this; if he does not question it, I shall let it lie." We two bowed and withdrew and sent up a writing as he had said.

From this time the commander-in-chief sent men back and forth between us and the camp of the Wa without a break. One day, as the commander-in-chief of our forces and I were coming back to Dongpa from paying our respects to him, we met before the Cheonsu Pavilion (天壽亭) Li Qing, the retainer of General Zha, going from Dongpa into Gaeseong, and greeted each other from our saddles and passed on. When we reached Chohyeon-ri (招賢里), three men of Ming came galloping up behind and called out to ask where the inspector-general was. When I said, "I am he," they scolded me to turn my horse, and one of them with a chain in his hand struck my horse wildly with a long whip and said, "Go, go." Not knowing what the matter was, I had no choice but to turn my horse and gallop toward Gaeseong. The man followed at my horse's heels and did not leave off whipping. All who were with me fell behind, and only the officer Kim Je (金霽) and the aide Sin Gyeongjin kept up with all their strength. Passing Cheonggyo Station (靑郊驛) and nearing the corner of the earthen wall, another man came galloping from inside the walls and said something to the three. Thereupon the three men bowed to me and said, "You may go." Bewildered and not knowing the reason, I turned back.

The next day Yi Deokhyeong told me, and I knew the matter at last. A retainer whom the commander-in-chief trusted and used had come in from outside and said to him, "Inspector-General Yu does not want the peace, and has had all the boats at the Imjin taken away so that envoys cannot get through to the camp of the Wa." The commander-in-chief in a sudden rage meant to have me seized and beaten forty strokes with the rod. Before I arrived he sat and stood by turns with his eyes glaring and his sleeves rolled up, so that all about him trembled. A little after, when Li Qing arrived, the commander-in-chief asked whether there were boats at the Imjin. When Qing said, "There are boats, and the going back and forth is unhindered," the commander-in-chief at once sent a man to stop those who were driving me, and had the retainer beaten several hundred strokes most severely for speaking recklessly, and when his breath stopped had him dragged out. And repenting his own anger he said to those about him, "Had the inspector-general come, how should I have received him?" In general the commander-in-chief had always been ill at ease in his heart because he thought I was no friend to the peace talk, and so, no sooner hearing another's word than without looking into it again, he raged thus fiercely. Men all thought me in peril.

Some days later the commander-in-chief sent two men again, the skirmish commanders Qi Jin (戚金) and Qian Shizhen (錢世禎), with the banner-tally to Dongpa, to call me and the commander-in-chief of our forces and the governor Yi Yeonhyeong and seat us together, and said quietly, "The enemy ask leave to give up the princes and the vassals and withdraw from the capital. Now it would be well to follow their request and let the enemy go out of the walls, and then make a plan to pursue and strike them." This was the commander-in-chief sending them to sound out what my mind was. I held still to what I had said before and did not leave off the give and take. Shizhen was quick-tempered, and in anger he scolded loudly: "If that is so, why did the king of your country abandon his walls and flee away?" I said slowly, "To move the capital and so preserve the country is also one way." At this Qi Jin only looked often at me and at Shizhen and smiled without a word. Shizhen and the other went back at last.

On the nineteenth day of the fourth month the commander-in-chief led the great army to Dongpa and lodged in Regional Commander Zha's tent. The enemy had already covenanted to withdraw their troops, so he meant to enter the capital. When I went to the place where the commander-in-chief stayed to pay my respects, he would not see me and said to the interpreter, "The inspector-general is no friend of mine; has he come to pay his respects as well?"

On the twentieth day of the fourth month the capital was recovered. The Ming troops entered the walls, and Commander-in-chief Li lodged at the Little Princess House. A day earlier the enemy had already gone out of the walls.

I went in with them and saw that of the people left inside the walls not one in a hundred was alive, and those alive were all starved and lean and spent, with faces like ghosts. The weather then was steaming hot, and dead men and dead horses lay uncovered in place after place so that the stench of rotting filled the walls, and those who went along the road held their noses as they passed. The public offices and the private houses were empty one and all, and only a single stretch from east of the Sungnye Gate along the foot of Namsan, the houses where the enemy had stayed, was a little left. The Royal Ancestral Shrine, the three palaces, the Bell Tower, the several offices, the Seonggyungwan, and the schools, all that stood north of the great road, had fallen down and nothing was left but ashes. The Little Princess House too was left because the Wa commander Hideie had stayed there.

I went first to the Royal Ancestral Shrine and wailed aloud, and next went to the place where the commander-in-chief stayed and met the several officials who had come to pay their respects, and we cried out loud a long while. The next morning I went again beneath the commander-in-chief's gate to ask after him and said, "The enemy troops have only just withdrawn and cannot have gone far. I beg you to send out troops and pursue them in haste." The commander-in-chief said, "My own mind is the same from the first. That I cannot pursue in haste is because there are no boats on the Han River." I said, "If Your Excellency would pursue the enemy, I shall go out to the riverside first and make the boats ready." The commander-in-chief said, "Very good."

I went out to the Han River. Before this I had sent dispatches to Seong Yeong (成泳), governor of the right circuit of Gyeonggi, and Yi Bin (李蘋), naval commander of Gyeonggi, that when the enemy withdrew they should in haste gather the boats on the river, great and small, and lose none but bring them all together at the Han River. By this time the boats that had come were eighty. I sent a man to inform the commander-in-chief that the boats were ready. A while, no longer than the eating of a meal, went by, and Li Rubai (李如柏), a camp commander, came out to the riverside leading more than ten thousand troops. When half the troops had crossed the day was already drawing in, and Rubai suddenly said his foot hurt and that "I must go back inside the walls and mend my illness, and then advance," and went back in a palanquin. The troops who had already crossed to the south of the Han River all crossed back and went into the walls. My heart was in pain, but there was nothing to be done. In general the commander-in-chief truly had no mind to pursue the enemy and only answered carelessly with empty words. On the twenty-third day I fell ill at last and took to my bed.

In the fifth month Commander-in-chief Li pursued the enemy as far as Mungyeong (聞慶) and came back.

Only then did Vice Minister Song send down a paiwen to the commander-in-chief to pursue the enemy. By that time the enemy had been gone some tens of days. The vice minister, fearing men would say that he had let the enemy go and not pursued them, made this show. In truth he feared the enemy and dared not advance, and came back. The enemy went slowly along the road, halting and walking by turns, and our troops who were beside the road all hid their traces to left and right and not one dared go out and strike.

The enemy withdrew and camped in divisions along the seacoast. From Seosaengpo (西生浦) in Ulsan as far as Dongnae, Gimhae, Ungcheon, and Geoje, head and tail joined to one another in sixteen camps in all; and all of them leaned on the hills with the sea at their backs, raising walls and digging trenches, reckoning on a long stay and not meaning to cross the sea.

Ming also had Liu Ting (劉綎), regional commander of Sichuan (四川), lead five thousand troops gathered in Fujian, Xishu (西蜀), Nanman (南蠻), and such places, and come out after them and camp at Palgeo (八莒) in Seongju. Of the southern commanders Wu Weizhong camped at Bonggye (鳳溪) in Seonsan, Li Ning (李寧), Zu Chengxun (祖承訓), and Ge Fengxia (葛逢夏) at Geochang, and Luo Shangzhi and Wang Bidi at Gyeongju, so that they ringed the four quarters and stood against the enemy, but did not advance. The army grain was brought from Honam and Hoseo and carried over steep roads and shared out among the several camps, so that the people's strength was wearied the more.

The commander-in-chief sent Shen Weijing again to admonish the Wa to cross the sea, and also sent Xu Yiguan (徐一貫) and Xie Yongzi (謝用榟) in to Nagoya (郞古耶) to see the kanpaku. In the sixth month the enemy at last sent back the two princes, Prince Imhae (臨海君) and Prince Sunhwa (順和君), and the ministers Hwang Jeongwuk and Hwang Hyeok (黃赫) and the rest, and sent Shen Weijing to make it known. Yet at the same time they advanced and ringed Jinju, boasting that they would repay the grudge of their defeat the year before. In general, when the enemy ringed Jinju in the Imjin year, the magistrate Kim Simin (金時敏) held them off so that they withdrew without winning, and that is why they said so.

On the eighth day the walls fell. The magistrate Seo Yewon (徐禮元), the administrator Seong Sugyeong (成守璟), Kim Cheonil the commissioner for raising righteous troops, Choe Gyeonghoe (崔慶會) the army commander of that province, Hwang Jin (黃進) the army commander of Chungcheong, Go Jonghu (高從厚) the avenging commander of righteous troops, and the rest all died, and the soldiers and people who died were more than sixty thousand, and not even the oxen, horses, fowls, and dogs were left. The enemy pulled down the walls, filled in the trenches, buried the wells, and cut down the trees, to work off their rage of former days. It was the twenty-eighth day of the sixth month.

At the first, when the court heard that the enemy were going down southward, it sent down orders one after another pressing the several commanders to pursue them. Under the commander-in-chief Kim Myeongwon and the inspector Gwon Yul the royal troops and the righteous troops all gathered at Uiryeong (宜寧). Gwon Yul, being used to his victory at Haengju, would cross the Gigang (岐江) and advance. Gwak Jaeu (郭再祐) and Go Eonbaek said, "The enemy's strength is just now at its height, and our troops are mostly a rabble thrown together, with few fit to fight; and there is no army grain ahead either, so we must not advance lightly." The others were neither for it nor against. Seong Hoseon (成好善), Yi Bin's aide, was a foolish man who did not understand affairs, yet he rolled up his sleeves and scolded the several commanders for hanging back, and fell in with Gwon Yul. So at last they crossed the river and came to Haman (咸安), but the walls were empty and they got nothing. The several troops had nothing to eat and picked unripe persimmons to eat, and had no mind to fight any more.

The next day word came that the enemy were pressing up in force from Gimhae. Many said Haman must be held, and some said they must withdraw to Jeongjin (鼎津) and hold that, and in the confusion they could not settle. Then, when they heard the enemy's guns, every man was afraid and vied in going out of the walls, and those who fell from the drawbridge and died were very many. Crossing back over Jeongjin and looking out, they saw the enemy troops pressing on by water and by land, covering the fields and filling the streams. The several commanders each went his own way and scattered. Gwon Yul, Kim Myeongwon, Yi Bin, Choe Won (崔遠), and the rest headed first for Jeolla Province, and only Kim Cheonil, Choe Gyeonghoe, Hwang Jin, and the rest went into Jinju. The enemy arrived behind them and ringed it.

The magistrate Seo Yewon and the administrator Seong Sugyeong had long been at Sangju as commissioners for seeing to the Ming commanders, and hearing that the enemy were heading for their own district they came back in disorder, and it was barely two days since. The walls of the district had leaned on steep ground on all four sides from the first, but in the Imjin year the eastern face had been moved down and set on level ground. Now the enemy raised eight towers, as though they would fly, to look down inside the walls, and cut the bamboo grove outside the walls and bound it in great sheaves and set them round about to cover their bodies and ward off arrows and stones; and from within these they fired their muskets like falling rain, so that those inside the walls dared not put out their heads.

Moreover those whom Cheonil led were all a crowd gathered in the markets of the capital, and Cheonil did not know the business of war while his own stubbornness was too strong; and he had always hated Seo Yewon, so that the side which had held the walls and the side which had come in (主客) were wary of one another and their commands went awry, and it was by this that they were greatly beaten. Only Hwang Jin held the eastern wall and fought for some days, until he was struck by a flying bullet and died; and then the troops lost their spirit, and no troops came to help from outside. As it happened rain fell from heaven and the wall crumbled, and the enemy clung to it like ants and came in. Those inside the walls bound thorns and threw them and hurled stones and fought their hardest, and the enemy were nearly driven back. But Cheonil's troops, who held the north gate, thought the walls had already fallen and broke first. The enemy who were up on the hill saw the troops breaking and pressed up all at once, and the several forces fell into great disorder. Cheonil at the Chokseok Pavilion (矗石樓) took Choe Gyeonghoe by the hand and wailed, and then leapt into the river and died. Of the soldiers and people only a few men got away. Since the Japanese disorder arose there had never been a killing of men so terrible as in this battle.

The court, holding that Cheonil had died for righteousness, gave him the high office of Right Assistant Councillor of the State Council. And holding that Gwon Yul fought boldly and did not fear the enemy, it made him commander-in-chief in Kim Myeongwon's place. Regional Commander Liu Ting, hearing that Jinju had fallen, hurried from Palgeo to Hapcheon, and Wu Weizhong came from Bonggye to Chogye and held the right circuit. The enemy too, having broken Jinju, went back to Busan and boasted that they would wait for Ming to allow the peace and then cross the sea.

In the tenth month the royal carriage returned to the capital. In the twelfth month Si Xian (司憲), an envoy of Ming, came.

Before this Shen Weijing had taken the Wa commander Konishi Hi (小西飛) with him and gone back with the kanpaku's letter of surrender. Ming suspected that the letter of surrender had not come from the kanpaku but had been falsely drawn up by Yukinaga and the rest. And since Jinju had fallen just as Weijing arrived, they held that the intent to submit was not sincere, and kept Konishi Hi in Liaodong and long sent no answer.

At that time the commander-in-chief and the several commanders had all gone home, and only the ten thousand and more troops of Liu Ting, Wu Weizhong, Wang Bidi, and the rest stayed at Palgeo. But within the country and without men starved cruelly and were worn out besides with the carrying, so that the old and weak rolled into the ditches and died and the young became robbers. And pestilence came on top of it, so that the dead were almost all, and it came to father and child, husband and wife, devouring one another, and the bones that lay bare were like grass in a thicket.

Not long after, Liu Ting's troops moved from Palgeo to Namwon, and from Namwon back to the capital, and after staying some ten days and more they hung back and went away westward. The enemy were still on the seacoast, so the hearts of men feared the more.

At this time the military commissioner Song Yingchang was impeached and left his post, and the new commissioner Gu Yangqian (顧養謙) took his place and came to Liaodong, and sent Vice Commander Hu Ze (胡澤) to come with a dispatch (箚付) and admonish our officials. The writing was in outline as follows.

"The Wa slaves invaded you without cause, and their force was as of splitting bamboo. They took your three cities of the capital, Gaeseong, and Pyeongyang, and held eight or nine parts in ten of your land and people, and took your princes and vassals captive. His Imperial Majesty was greatly angered and raised troops; in one battle Pyeongyang was broken, and in a second advance Gaeseong was gained, so that the Wa slaves fled at last from the capital, sent back the princes and the vassals, and more than two thousand li of land was recovered. The money of the state spent on it is beyond counting, and the soldiers and horses that died were not few. The grace and righteousness of the court in dealing with a subject state have come to this, and His Imperial Majesty's boundless kindness has already gone beyond measure.

Now the army grain cannot be carried again and the troops cannot be used again, while the Wa slaves too fear our majesty and ask to surrender, begging investiture and tribute. Ming ought to allow the investiture and tribute and receive them as an outer vassal, and drive the Wa so that they all cross the sea and can never again invade you, and thus loose the knot and rest the troops. This is the long plan for your country.

Now your country's grain is spent and the people devour one another; on what then do you trust in asking for troops? If troops and grain are no longer given to your country, and the investiture and tribute of the Wa slaves are cut off besides, the Wa slaves will surely vent their anger upon your country, and your country will surely perish; why then do you not plan for yourselves in good time?

Of old, when Goujian (句踐) was brought low on Mount Huiji (會稽山), how should he not have wished to chew Fuchai's (夫差) flesh? Yet he bore his shame for a while and swallowed the insult and waited for his time, and himself became a servant and his wife a concubine. How much more is it better than what the lord and ministers of Goujian plotted, to ask on the Wa's behalf to be servant and concubine to the Middle Kingdom, and thereby to take breath and plan at leisure. If you cannot do even this, it is but the view of a narrow man who flares up, and not of a hero who repays his enemy and washes away his shame.

If you ask investiture and tribute for the Wa and it comes to pass, then the Wa will surely be the more grateful to the Middle Kingdom, and will know Joseon too for its kindness, and will surely draw off their troops. After the Wa are gone, if the lord and ministers of your country vex their hearts and burn their thoughts, lying on brushwood and tasting gall, and so practice the affair of Goujian — the way of heaven turns round and round, and how should it be known that there will never be a day of repaying the Wa?"

Its words ran on in a thousand and a hundred phrases, but the great purport was this.

While Hu Ze stayed at the guest house some three months, the counsels of the court were not settled and the sovereign's mind was the more troubled. I had then withdrawn on account of illness, but I sent up a writing and reported, "To ask investiture is truly not right in righteousness. Only, it is fitting to report the recent circumstances in full and to follow Ming's disposal." I reported it several times and at last received consent. Thereupon Heo Uk went as the memorial envoy.

At that time Commissioner Gu too left his post on another's word, and the new commissioner Sun Kuang (孫鑛) came in his place. The Ministry of War reported and had Konishi Hi called to the capital and questioned him on three matters. The first was to seek investiture only and not tribute; the second, not to leave one Wa at Busan; the third, never to invade Joseon. If they did as covenanted he would be invested at once, and if not, it could not be. Konishi Hi pointed to heaven and swore that he would keep the covenant.

So Shen Weijing was again to take Konishi Hi into the camp of the Wa and admonish them; and Li Zongcheng (李宗誠) and Yang Fangheng (楊方亨) were made chief and vice envoys to go and invest Hira Hideyoshi (平秀吉) as king of Japan, but Zongcheng and the other were to stay in our capital and go only after the Wa had all withdrawn.

In the fourth month of the Eulmi year Zongcheng and the other came to Hanseong and sent men one after another to press the Wa to cross the sea, so that those going and coming followed close upon one another. Thereupon the Wa first drew in some camps at Ungcheon and the several camps at Jangmunpo (塲門浦) and Sojinpo (蘇津浦) in Geoje to show their good faith, and said, "We fear being deceived as at Pyeongyang; we beg that the Ming envoys come quickly into the camp of the Wa, and we shall do all as covenanted."

In the eighth month Yang Fangheng, having received the dispatch of the Ministry of War, came first to Busan; but the Wa put it off and did not at once draw in all their camps, and asked again for the chief envoy, so that men were much in doubt. Shi Xing (石星), the Minister of War, trusted Shen Weijing's words and held that the Wa had no other purpose, and being pressed besides to withdraw the troops he urged Zongcheng again and again to go forward. In the counsels of the court many were of another mind, but Shi Xing stood up boldly and took it upon himself. In the ninth month Zongcheng came on to Busan, but Hira Yukinaga did not come at once to see him, and said he would go to the kanpaku and get his decision and then receive the Ming envoy. Yukinaga went into Japan and came back only in the first month of the Byeongsin year, and still did not speak clearly of drawing off the troops. Shen Weijing left the two envoys and crossed the sea first, alone with Yukinaga again, giving as his excuse that he would settle by discussion the ceremonies for receiving the envoy; and men could not reckon him. Weijing put on silk clothes and went aboard, and had four great characters written on a banner, "making the two countries even," and set it at the prow, and went.

After he had gone there was long no answer. Li Zongcheng was a descendant of Li Wenzhong (李文忠), a founding minister, and a son of a noble house who had come into office by his forebear's merit, and he was of a rather timid nature. Someone said to Zongcheng, "The chief of the Wa truly has no mind to receive investiture, and is about to lure Zongcheng and the other in and shut them up and put them to shame." Zongcheng was much afraid, and in the middle of the night he slipped out of the camp in shabby clothes, abandoning his servants, his baggage, his seal, and his staff and axe of office, and fled. Only the next morning did the Wa learn of it and pursue him by several roads as far as Seokgyo (石橋) in Yangsan, and came back without taking him. Yang Fangheng alone stayed in the camp of the Wa and soothed the host of the Wa, and sent a dispatch to our country as well that they should not be startled into moving. Zongcheng dared not go by the high road but hid himself in the mountain valleys and went hungry some days, and passed by Gyeongju and went westward.

Presently Shen Weijing and Yukinaga came back at last and drew in the camps of Seosaengpo and Jukdo (竹島) and the others as well, so that the camps not drawn in were only the four at Busan. Then he took Vice Envoy Yang with him and crossed the sea. Shen Weijing demanded also that our envoy go with them, and sent his nephew Shen Maoshi (沈懋時) to press the departure. The court was unwilling, but as Maoshi was bent on their going together, of necessity they complied, sending the military officials Yi Bongchun (李逢春) and the rest and calling them the attendant vassals. Someone said, "If military men go to that place much will be spoiled; a civil official who knows the reason of things must be sent." At that time Hwang Sin (黃愼) was in the camp of the Wa as Shen Weijing's envoy-attendant, so Hwang Sin was at once made to go along.

The Ming envoys Yang Fangheng and Shen Weijing came back from Japan.

Before this, when Fangheng and the other reached Japan, the kanpaku would have decked out a guest house richly to receive them, but as it happened the earth shook greatly in a single night and nearly all of it fell down, so he received them in another house. At their meeting with the two envoys, once or twice, it seemed at first that he would receive the investiture; then suddenly he was greatly angered and said, "I released the prince of Joseon and let him go, so Joseon ought to send a prince to thank me; but the rank of their envoy is low, and this is to make light of me."

Hwang Sin and the rest could not even deliver the sovereign's command, and were pressed, together with Yang Fangheng and Shen Weijing and the rest, to go back with them; nor was there any ceremony of thanks to Ming for its grace. The enemy commander Hira Yukinaga came back to Busanpo, and Kiyomasa again led troops and came on and camped at Seosaengpo, and boasted that only when a prince came and gave thanks would he loose his troops.

In general what the chief of the Wa wanted was very great and did not stop at investiture and tribute, while Ming allowed the investiture only and not the tribute. Shen Weijing was friendly with Hira Yukinaga and would patch and stitch as each thing came up and bring the affair about by smoothing it over, and he did not make the true state of things known either to Ming or to our country; and so the affair went wrong in the end. Our country at once sent an envoy hurrying to report the matter, and thereupon Shi Xing and Shen Weijing both came under guilt, and the Ming troops came out again.

Yi Sunsin (李舜臣), the naval commander-in-chief, was seized and shut in prison.

At the first Won Gyun (元均) was grateful to Sunsin for coming to his aid, and they were very glad of each other; but presently, contending over merit, they grew worse and worse between them. Gyun was dark and crooked in nature, and had many connections besides within the country and without, and he spared no strength in weaving slanders against Sunsin. He always said, "Sunsin at first would not come, and it was I who insisted and so he came; the beating of the enemy is my first merit."

At that time the counsels of the court were divided, and each side had those it took the part of. It was I who had first recommended Sunsin, so those who were no friends of mine joined hands with Won Gyun and attacked Sunsin bitterly. Only Yi Wonik, the Right State Councillor, made plain that it was not so, and said besides, "Sunsin and Won Gyun each have ground of their own to hold and guard, so his not going forward at once at the first is not deeply to be blamed."

Before this the enemy commander Hira Yukinaga had let a petty Wa, Yoshira (要時羅), come and go in the camp of Kim Eungseo, the army commander of the right circuit of Gyeongsang, and had shown a show of warm goodwill. About the time when Kiyomasa was to come out again, Yoshira said secretly to Eungseo, "Our commander Yukinaga has said that the reason this business of peace is not accomplished is Kiyomasa, and that he hates him bitterly. On such a day Kiyomasa will cross the sea. Joseon is good at fighting on the sea, and if you meet and strike him in mid-sea you can beat and kill him. Be sure not to let him slip."

When Eungseo reported the matter, the counsels of the court believed it. Yun Geunsu (尹根壽), Lord of Haepyeong, was the more delighted and leapt for joy, and calling it an opportunity not to be let slip he reported it again and again and pressed Sunsin one time after another to go forward. Sunsin, suspecting that the enemy had a trick in it, hung back for several days. At this Yoshira came again and said, "Kiyomasa has now already landed; why did Joseon not block and cut him off?" and made a show of regret.

When this became known, the counsels of the court all blamed Sunsin, and the censors asked that he be seized and examined. One Bak Seong (朴惺), a former magistrate and a man of Hyeonpung, also fell in with the opinion of the day and sent up a memorial urging in the strongest words that Sunsin be beheaded. In the end an officer of the State Tribunal (義禁府) was sent to seize and bring him, and Won Gyun was made naval commander-in-chief.

The sovereign still doubted that all he heard was fact, and sent Nam Isin (南以信), an instructor (司成) of the Seonggyungwan, specially down to Hansando to look into it. As soon as Isin entered Jeolla Province, the soldiers and people who blocked the road and cried out Sunsin's wrong were beyond all counting. Yet Isin did not report what was fact, but said this: "Kiyomasa stayed seven days on a sea island, so that had our troops gone they could have brought him back bound; but Sunsin hung back and let the chance go."

When Sunsin came to prison, the great ministers were made to deliberate his guilt. Only Jeong Tak (鄭琢), Director of the Privy Council (中樞府), said, "Sunsin is a famed commander and must not be put to death. The hidden turns of war and what profits and harms are hard to reckon from afar, so there must have been some purpose in his not going forward. Pardon him generously and let him repay it with merit hereafter." After one round of torture his death was remitted, his office taken away, and he was put into the ranks.

Sunsin's old mother was at Asan, and hearing that Sunsin was shut in prison she passed away of worry and alarm. Sunsin came out of prison and passed Asan on the road and put on mourning, and went straight to Gwon Yul's tent and followed the army. Men heard of it and were sorrowful.

Ming made Xing Jie (邢玠), the Minister of War, supreme commander of the army gate (總督軍門), and Yang Hao (楊鎬), provincial administration commissioner of Liaodong, superintendent (經理) in charge of Joseon's military affairs, and made Ma Gui (麻貴) the great general; and Yang Yuan, Liu Ting, Dong Yiyuan (董一元), and the rest came out one after another.

In the fifth month of the Jeongyu year Yang Yuan came first, leading three thousand troops, and after staying some days in the capital went down into Jeolla Province and stayed to hold Namwon. It was because Namwon held the neck where Honam and Yeongnam meet, and its walls were rather firm and whole, and in former days Luo Shangzhi had built them up further so that they were fit to hold. Outside the walls was the Gyoryong Mountain Fortress (蛟龍山城), and many argued for holding the mountain fortress; but Yang Yuan, holding that the main walls were fit to hold, built the rampart higher and dug the moat deeper and set within the moat a sheep-and-horse wall (羊馬墻) besides, and pressing the work night and day finished it roughly in a month and more.

On the seventh day of the eighth month the navy at Hansando broke, and the naval commander-in-chief Won Gyun and Yi Eokgi (李億祺), naval commander of the right circuit of Jeolla, died, while Bae Seol (裵楔), naval commander of the right circuit of Gyeongsang, fled and got away.

At the first, when Won Gyun came to Hansando he tore up and changed every rule that Yi Sunsin had set, and of the commanders under him and the soldiers he put away all who had been in the least employed by Sunsin. Yi Yeongnam (李英男) he hated the more, because he knew in detail how Won Gyun had fled and been beaten in former days; and so the army's heart was resentful and indignant.

When Sunsin was at Hansando he built a house and named it the Hall of Reckoning Plans (運籌堂), and was within it night and day, deliberating the business of war with his several commanders. Even if it were a soldier of the lowest rank, if he wished to speak of the business of war he was let come and tell it, so that the state of things in the camp was made known. Whenever he was to fight he called all the commanders under him and asked their plans, and fought only after the plan was settled; and so he never lost. But Gyun brought a favorite concubine and lived with her in that house, and set a double fence about it to shut off within from without, so that the several commanders rarely saw his face. He was fond of wine besides, and day by day raged in drunkenness and used punishments without measure. In the camp they said secretly, "If we meet the enemy there is nothing for it but to run"; and the several commanders too laughed among themselves and neither asked him again nor feared him, so that his commands did not stand.

At that time, as the enemy were about to invade again, Hira Yukinaga sent Yoshira once more to deceive Kim Eungseo, saying, "The Wa ships will come on in greater numbers on such a day, and the navy of Joseon can still meet and strike them." Gwon Yul, the commander-in-chief, believed those words the more; and since Yi Sunsin had come under guilt for hanging back, he pressed Won Gyun day by day to send out his troops. Gyun too had always said that Sunsin saw the enemy and did not go forward, and by that had brought Sunsin down and taken his place himself; so now, though he knew the case was hard, he was ashamed and had nothing to say, and had no choice but to lead out all his ships and go forward.

From the Wa camp on the heights they looked down on the ships going and told one another. When Gyun came to Jeoryeongdo (絕影島) the wind got up and the waves rose, and the day was already drawing in with nowhere to berth the ships. Looking out at the Wa ships appearing and vanishing in mid-sea, Gyun pressed his several forces to go forward. The men in the ships had rowed all day from Hansando without rest, and were besides hungry and thirsty and spent and could not work the ships, so that the several ships went forward and back this way and that, now ahead and now behind. The Wa, meaning to wear us out, each time our ships drew near would dawdle and draw back and avoid them and not cross blades. As the night deepened and the wind grew fierce, our ships scattered on every side and drifted away, and where they went was not known.

Gyun gathered the few ships that were left and came back to Gadeokdo (加德島). The soldiers were parched with thirst and vied in going ashore to draw water, when the Wa soldiers came out suddenly from within the island and fell upon them, so that more than four hundred officers and men were lost. Gyun withdrew again and came to Chilcheondo (漆川島) off Geoje. Gwon Yul, who was at Goseong, holding that Gyun had got nothing, summoned him by written order and had him beaten with the rod and pressed him to go forward again. Gyun came back to the camp and, the more indignant and sore at heart, drank and lay down drunk; and when the several commanders would see Gyun and speak of affairs they could not meet him.

In the middle of the night the Wa ships came and fell upon them, and the troops broke utterly. Gyun fled to the shore and abandoned his ship and went ashore and would have fled, but his body was fat and he was slow, and he sat beneath a pine tree while all about him scattered. Some say he was harmed by the enemy and some that he fled and got away, but the fact could not be known in the end. Yi Eokgi threw himself into the water from aboard his ship.

Bae Seol had before this remonstrated with Gyun more than once that they would surely be beaten, and on this day too he said, "Chilcheondo is shallow and narrow and not good for working ships; we should move the camp elsewhere"; but Gyun would hear none of it. Seol made a secret covenant with the ships he led and kept strict watch and waited for what should come; and seeing the enemy come and attack, he slipped out of the inlet and fled first, so that his troops alone were whole. Seol came back to Hansando and set fire to the houses, the grain, and the arms and burnt them, and moved the people who were left on the island so that they might escape the enemy, and went away.

When Hansando broke, the enemy rode the force of their victory and turned westward, and Namhae and Suncheon fell in their turn. The enemy ships came to Duchijin (豆恥津) and landed and advanced and ringed Namwon, and Honam and Hoseo were greatly shaken.

In general, since the enemy came into our land in the Imjin year they had been beaten by our navy alone. Hira Hideyoshi resented this and pressed Yukinaga to be sure to take the navy. Yukinaga made a false show of sincerity to Kim Eungseo and so brought Yi Sunsin under guilt, and then lured Won Gyun out into mid-sea and found out all his strength and weakness and then fell upon him and struck. His scheme was most artful, and we fell into that scheme one and all; it is a sorrow.

The Wa soldiers took the Hwangseok Mountain Fortress (黃石山城), and Gwak Jun (郭䞭), magistrate of Aneum, and Jo Jongdo (趙宗道), former magistrate of Haman, died.

At the first, Yi Wonik the inspector-general and Gwon Yul the commander-in-chief agreed to put the mountain fortresses of the province in order and so ward off the enemy, and built the walls of Gongsan (公山), Geumo (金烏), Yonggi (龍紀), Busan (富山), and the rest. Of these the people's strength was used the most upon Gongsan and Geumo, and the arms and army grain of the neighboring districts were all gathered and filled in there, and the magistrates were pressed to lead in even the old and weak, men and women alike, and hold them; and far and near there was a stir.

When the enemy moved again, Kiyomasa headed west from Seosaengpo into Jeolla Province to meet Yukinaga's water force and strike Namwon. From the commander-in-chief downward they all withdrew on hearsay alone, and sent word to those who had gone into the mountain fortresses here and there to hold them that each should scatter and escape the enemy. Only Gwak Jaeu, commander of righteous troops, went into the Hwawang Mountain Fortress (火旺山城) at Changnyeong and would hold it to the death. The enemy came to the foot of the hill and looked up at the steepness of it, and seeing besides that those within the walls were still and did not move, they went away without striking.

Gwak Jun, magistrate of Aneum, went into the Hwangseok Mountain Fortress, and Baek Sarim (白士霖), the former prefect of Gimhae, went into the walls as well. Sarim was a military man, and the multitude trusted him and held him of weight. One day after the enemy troops struck the walls Sarim fled first, so that the several forces all broke and the enemy entered the walls. Gwak Jun died together with his sons Isang (履祥) and Ihu (履厚). Jun's daughter was married to Yu Munho (柳文虎), and Munho was taken by the Wa. The lady Gwak had already come out of the walls, and hearing this she said to her maidservant, "That I did not follow my father in death when he died was because I had a husband. Now my husband too is taken; by what shall I live?" Then she hanged herself and died.

Jo Jongdo had said long before, "I too am a man who followed in the train of officials and great men, and I cannot die in the grass along with the crowd who flee and hide. If I am to die, I shall die openly." Then he took his wife and children into the walls and made a poem.

Outside Mount Kongtong, even to live is still a joy; within the walls that Xun and Yuan held, even to die is glory.

In the end he was harmed together with Gwak Jun.

Yi Sunsin was raised up again and made naval commander-in-chief of the three provinces.

When word came that Hansando was beaten, court and country were startled and trembled. The sovereign called the several officials of the Border Defense Council before him and asked them, but the officials were at a loss and could not answer. Kim Myeongwon, Lord of Gyeongnim, and Yi Hangbok (李恒福), the Minister of War, reported quietly, "This is Won Gyun's guilt. Yi Sunsin alone must be raised up and made commander-in-chief." The sovereign followed it.

At that time Gwon Yul, hearing that Won Gyun was beaten, had already gone to Yi Sunsin and had him gather the troops that were left. The enemy were just then thrusting and driving on, so Sunsin, with one officer, went from Gyeongsang Province into Jeolla Province, traveling secretly night and day and forcing his way by hard roads, and came to Jindo (珍島) to gather troops and ward off the enemy.

The Wa soldiers took the prefecture of Namwon, and the Ming commander Yang Yuan fled back, while Yi Bongnam (李福男), the army commander of Jeolla, Im Hyeon (任鉉), the prefect of Namwon, Kim Gyeongno, an auxiliary commander, Yi Chunwon (李春元), magistrate of Gwangyang, and Jeong Giwon (鄭期遠), envoy-attendant to the Ming commander, and the rest all died. Twelve of the formation-breaking troops (破陣軍) of the Armory (軍器寺) went into Namwon with Yang Yuan and all died in the fighting; only one Kim Hyoui (金孝義) got away, and he told me of the falling of the walls in great detail.

Regional Commander Yang came to Namwon and built the walls up by about one gil, and bored countless gun holes in the sheep-and-horse wall outside, and set two or three great cannon at the gate and dug the moat one or two gil deep. After Hansando was beaten the enemy came by water and by land, and word of it was most urgent, so that within the walls there was a stir and the people fled and scattered, and only the three thousand horsemen of Liaodong whom the regional commander led were inside the walls. The regional commander summoned Yi Bongnam, the army commander of Jeolla, by written order, to hold it with him, but Bongnam put it off and did not come. When night scouts (夜不收), who do not rest even at night, were sent again and again to press him he came unwillingly, but the troops he led were barely a few hundred. Yi Chunwon, magistrate of Gwangyang, and Kim Gyeongno, the auxiliary commander, and the rest arrived one after another.

On the thirteenth day of the eighth month the van of the Wa, a hundred and more, came beneath the walls and fired their muskets, then left off in a moment and all scattered and lay down among the field ridges, going off in bands of three or four or five and coming back again. Those on the walls met them with the small "victory" cannon (勝字小炮). The great camp of the Wa was far off and only raiding troops came out to fight, and they stood thinly spread and came on by turns, so that the cannon could not hit them; while the soldiers holding the walls were struck now and then by the enemy's bullets and died.

Presently the Wa came beneath the walls and asked those on the walls to come and speak with them. The regional commander had one retainer take an interpreter and go to the camp of the Wa, and he came back with a writing of the Wa, which was a writing appointing battle.

On the fourteenth day the Wa camped around three faces of the walls and struck by turns with gun and cannon as on the day before. Before this the ground outside the south gate of the walls had been thick with the people's houses, and when the enemy drew near the regional commander burnt them. But the stone fences and earthen walls were left standing, and the enemy came and clung among the fences and walls and covered their bodies and fired their bullets, so that many on the walls were struck.

On the fifteenth day they looked out and saw the host of the Wa cutting the rank grass outside the walls and the rice in the paddies, binding it in great sheaves and piling it beyond counting among the fences and walls; and within the walls they could not reckon what it meant. At that time the skirmish general Chen Yuzhong (陳愚衷) was at Jeonju with three thousand troops, and the troops of Namwon looked day by day for relief to come, but it was long in coming and the army's heart feared the more. That evening the soldiers holding the parapets now and then put their heads together and whispered and made their saddles ready, with a look of fleeing about them.

At the first watch of the night a great clamor rose in the camp of the Wa, with voices answering one another as though something were being carried; and on one side they fired their cannon wildly at the walls, so that the bullets flying in poured upon the walls like hail. Those on the walls drew in their necks and dared not look out. After one or two hours the clamor stopped, and the sheaves of grass had already filled the moat and had been pushed up besides within and without the sheep-and-horse wall, so that in a moment they were level with the walls. The host of the Wa trampled up and climbed the walls. Presently there was great disorder within the walls, and the cry was heard that the Wa had entered.

Hyoui had at first been holding the sheep-and-horse wall outside the south gate, and in his haste he went into the walls; but there was no one on the walls any more, and he saw only fires rising here and there inside. Running to the north gate, he found the Ming troops all mounted and trying to go out of the gate, but the gate was shut fast and would not open easily, so that the horses' hooves seemed tied and the street was packed full. Presently the gate opened and men and horses vied in going out of it, and the Wa soldiers, who had ringed the outside of the walls two and three deep and each held a vital neck of the road, swung their long swords and hacked wildly, so that the Ming troops bowed their heads and took the blade. As it happened the moon was bright, and those who got away were few. The regional commander with a few retainers galloped out and barely got his body away, though some say the Wa knew he was the regional commander and let him flee on purpose. Hyoui went out of the gate with one comrade, and the one man met the enemy and died; and Hyoui, they say, leapt into a paddy and lay hidden in the grass, and slipped away after the Wa had drawn in their troops.

In general Yang Yuan was a commander of Liaodong and knew only how to ward off the barbarians and did not know how to ward off the Wa, and so came to be beaten. And since it is to be seen as well that a walled town on level ground is most hard to hold, I have set down Hyoui's words in detail, that those who hold walls hereafter may know what to be wary of. When Namwon fell, all north of Jeonju crumbled and nothing could be done. Yang Yuan was punished for this affair in the end, and his head was cut off and shown about.

Yi Sunsin, the naval commander-in-chief, broke the Wa soldiers beneath the Byeokpa Pavilion (碧波亭) at Jindo and killed their commander Madasi (馬多時).

Sunsin came to Jindo and gathered the warships together, and they came to a little more than ten. At that time those along the coast who took to boats to escape the disorder were beyond counting, and when they heard that Sunsin had come there was not one who was not glad. Sunsin divided the roads and called them together, and from far and near they gathered like clouds. He set them behind the troops to help make a show of strength.

The enemy commander Madasi had a name for being good at fighting at sea, and he was leading his two hundred and more ships to invade the Western Sea when they met beneath the Byeokpa Pavilion. Sunsin loaded great cannon on twelve ships and came up on the tide and struck along the channel, so that the enemy were beaten and fled, and the voice of his army rang far.

By this time Sunsin had already more than eight thousand troops. He advanced and stayed at Gogeumdo (古今島), and fearing that the grain would fall short he made travel passes for going about by sea and gave this command: "Any public or private vessel on the coasts of the three provinces that has no travel pass shall be dealt with as a spy, and shall not go about." Thereupon those who had taken to boats to escape the disorder all came and received passes. Sunsin set the order by the size of the ship, so that they presented rice and received a pass: three seom for a great ship, two for a middling one, one for a small one. Those escaping the disorder had loaded all their goods and grain and come onto the sea, so they did not think it hard to present rice, and were rather glad to be allowed to go about unhindered. In ten days he got more than ten thousand seok of army grain. He also gathered the people and had copper and iron brought in and cast great cannon, and cut timber and built ships, so that in every matter all was made ready. Those escaping the disorder, far and near, came and leaned upon Sunsin and built huts and lived by trade, until the island could not hold them all.

Presently Chen Lin (陳璘), the Ming naval commander-in-chief (都督), came out and went down south to Gogeumdo and joined forces with Sunsin. Chen Lin was fierce and rough in nature and often fell out with men, so that all feared him. The sovereign saw him off in the fields of Cheongpa (靑坡), and I saw that Chen Lin's troops beat and abused the local magistrates without scruple, and tied a cord to the neck of Yi Sanggyu (李尙規), the postal inspector, and dragged him so that his face was all blood. I had an interpreter try to stop them, but to no purpose. I said to the ministers seated with me, "It is a pity, but Yi Sunsin's force too will be beaten. If he is in one camp with Chen Lin, everything he does will be caught and crossed, and Chen Lin will surely take away the commander's authority and deal harshly with the soldiers. Cross him and his anger will grow; follow him and there will be no end of it. How then should the force not be beaten?" The others said, "It is so," and could only sigh together.

Sunsin, hearing that Chen Lin was coming, had his troops hunt and fish on a great scale, and got many deer and wild boar and things of the sea, and made wine ready in plenty and waited. When Chen Lin's ships came onto the sea, Sunsin set out the army's ceremonial array and went far out to meet him, and after his coming he entertained his troops greatly, so that from the several commanders downward there was none who was not drunk. The soldiers passed it from one to another and said, "Truly he is a fine commander." Chen Lin too was glad in his heart.

Not long after, when the enemy's ships invaded a nearby island, Sunsin sent troops and broke them and got forty enemy heads, and gave them all to Chen Lin to be counted as his merit. Chen Lin, glad the more at what he had not looked for, from this time asked Sunsin about every matter alike, and when they went out he set his palanquin level with Sunsin's and did not dare go ahead. Sunsin then kept the Ming troops and his own in order without distinction, and whoever took so much as a thread of the people's goods he had seized and beaten with the rod, so that none dared disobey his command and the island was solemn and still. Chen Lin sent up a writing to the sovereign saying, "The naval commander-in-chief has the talent to weave and govern heaven and earth as warp and weft, and the merit of mending the sky and washing the sun" — which was to say that he admired him from the heart.

The enemy troops withdrew.

At that time the enemy trampled three provinces, and wherever they passed they burnt the houses and killed the people; and when they took men of our country they cut off all their noses to make a show of their terror. When the enemy troops came to Jiksan (稷山) the people of the capital all fled and scattered. On the ninth day of the ninth month the queen went down westward to escape the disorder. Superintendent Yang Hao and Commander-in-chief Ma Gui were in the capital, and more than five thousand troops of Pyeongan Province and some thousands from Hwanghae and Gyeonggi were called together and divided to hold the river fords and to guard the storehouses. The enemy withdrew again from the borders of Gyeonggi, and Kiyomasa camped again at Ulsan, Yukinaga at Suncheon, and Simandono (沈安頓吾) at Sacheon (泗川), so that head and tail were seven or eight hundred li apart.

At this time the capital was all but impossible to hold, and the officials of the court vied in reporting plans for getting away. Sin Jap (申磼), a senior officer, came forward and said, "The royal carriage should go to Yeongbyeon. Your servant once served as army commander there and knows the affairs of Yeongbyeon well, and what is most to be feared is that there is no soy sauce or bean paste. If it be not made ready beforehand, with what shall the need be met?" Those who heard it passed it about as a jest, saying, "They say that unless it be a Sin (申), the sauces cannot be brewed."

One great minister said in the court hall, "What is there to fear in this enemy? In time they will stop of themselves. There is nothing to do but take the royal carriage to a place of safety."

When Gwon Yul, the commander-in-chief, hurried to the capital, the sovereign called him before him and questioned him. Gwon Yul reported, "That the royal carriage returned to the capital out of hand at the first was not right. You should have stayed in the west and seen how the enemy's strength stood." Presently, hearing that the enemy had withdrawn, Gwon Yul went down to Gyeongsang Province again. The censors argued that Gwon Yul was without plans and full of fear and could not be commander-in-chief, but the sovereign did not listen.

In the twelfth month Superintendent Yang and Commander-in-chief Ma led some tens of thousands of horse and foot down into Gyeongsang Province and struck the enemy camp at Ulsan.

At that time the enemy commander Kiyomasa had built walls on a steep place by the sea east of Ulsan district. The superintendent and the commander-in-chief fell upon them in an unlooked-for moment and charged with mailed horsemen, so that the enemy went down and could not hold. When the Ming troops took the enemy's outer stockade the enemy fled into the inner wall. The Ming troops, greedy for spoils, did not go straight on and strike, so the enemy shut their gates and held fast, and for all the striking they could not be beaten. The several camps camped in divisions beneath the walls and ringed and watched them thirteen days, but the enemy did not come out.

On the twenty-ninth day I went from Gyeongju and saw the superintendent and the commander-in-chief. Looking out at the enemy's rampart, it was wholly still and at ease, without even the sound of a man. They had set no parapet on the wall but had made a long gallery round all four sides, and the troops on guard were all within it; and when the troops outside came beneath the walls they fired their bullets wildly like rain. Day after day blades were crossed, and the Ming troops and ours lay dead in heaps beneath the walls. The enemy's ships came from Seosaengpo to their relief and lay out on the water like ducks and geese.

In the Dosan (島山) walls that the enemy held there was no water, so the enemy came outside the walls night after night. The superintendent had Kim Eungseo lead brave men and lie in ambush beside a spring outside the walls, and night after night they took more than a hundred alive, all starved and lean with barely breath in them. The several commanders said, "The grain inside the walls is cut off; if they are ringed long they will crumble of themselves." At that time the weather was bitterly cold and foul rain fell, so that the soldiers' hands and feet froze and split. Presently the enemy came again to their relief by the land road, and the superintendent, fearing they would take the opening, suddenly turned his troops back. In the first month the Ming commanders all came back to the capital and planned to set the business going again.

In the seventh month of the Musul year the superintendent Yang Hao was replaced, and the new superintendent Wan Shide (萬世德) took his place.

At that time Ding Yingtai (丁應泰), a director in the Ministry of War and a staff officer to Commander Xing of the army gate, impeached Yang Hao in a report on some twenty counts of deceiving the sovereign and spoiling affairs, and Yang Hao was replaced at last and went. The sovereign, holding that of the several superintendents Yang Hao had been the keenest in purpose for striking the enemy, at once had Yi Wonik, the Left State Councillor, carry a writing in his support and hurry to the capital. In the eighth month, when Yang Hao went westward, the sovereign saw him off as far as east of Hongjewon and shed tears and parted from him. Wan Shide was to come out but had not yet arrived.

In the ninth month Xing Jie again divided the disposition, giving Ulsan to Ma Gui, Sacheon to Dong Yiyuan, Suncheon to Liu Ting, and the water road to Chen Lin, and they advanced and struck all at once, but none of them won. The troops of Dong Yiyuan were beaten by the enemy, and the dead among them were the more many.

In the tenth month Commander-in-chief Liu struck the enemy camp at Suncheon again, and Yi Sunsin, the naval commander-in-chief, with his navy broke their relief force greatly in mid-sea. Sunsin died in this battle. The enemy commander Hira Yukinaga abandoned his walls and fled, and the enemy camps along the coast at Busan, Ulsan, and Hadong all withdrew.

At that time Yukinaga had built walls at Yegyo (芮橋) in Suncheon and held them fast. Liu Ting advanced with the great army and struck but did not win, and went back to Suncheon, and presently advanced and struck again. Yi Sunsin, together with the Ming commander Chen Lin, blocked the sea and drew near and pressed them. Yukinaga asked relief of Simandono, the enemy at Sacheon, and Donno came by the water road to his relief. Sunsin advanced and struck and broke them greatly and burnt more than two hundred of the enemy's ships, and those killed and taken were beyond counting. He pursued them as far as the borders of Namhae.

Sunsin himself braved the arrows and stones and fought with all his strength, when a flying bullet struck him in the breast and came out at his back. Those about him held him up and brought him inside the tent, and Sunsin said, "The battle is at its height; be sure not to say that I am dead." Having said this, his breath stopped.

Sunsin's nephew Wan (莞) had boldness of heart from the first, and he hid his death and gave out that it was Sunsin's command, and pressed the fighting the more urgently, so that the camp did not know. When the ship Chen Lin rode was ringed by the enemy, Wan saw it and directed his own force and saved him, and the enemy scattered and went. Chen Lin sent a man to Sunsin to thank him for saving him, and then heard of his death for the first time, and threw himself from his stool to the ground and said, "I thought Your Excellency came alive and saved me; how is it that you have passed away?" He beat his breast and wailed aloud, and the whole army wept so that the sound shook the sea. Yukinaga took the opening while the navy was pursuing the enemy past the front of his camp, and slipped away behind them.

Before this, in the seventh month, the chief of the Wa, Hira Hideyoshi, had already died, and it was for this that the enemy camps along the coast all withdrew.

When our troops and the Ming troops heard that Sunsin was dead, camp after camp wailed as though they mourned their own parents. Wherever his bier came the people set out offerings in place after place and held to the carriage and wept and said, "Your Excellency truly gave us life, and now Your Excellency abandons us — where do you go?" The road was blocked so that the carriage could not go forward, and there was none even of the passersby who did not shed tears. He was given the office of Right State Councillor of the State Council. Commander Xing of the army gate said that a shrine should be raised by the sea to honor his loyal spirit, but the thing was not accomplished in the end. Thereupon the people of the coast led one another and raised a shrine and named it Mourned Loyalty (愍忠), and made offerings there in each season; and the traders and the fishing boats that went to and fro beneath it, they say, each made an offering whenever they passed.

Yi Sunsin's courtesy name was Yeohae (汝諧), and he was a man of Deoksu (德水). Among his forebears was one Byeon (邊), whose office reached Director of the Privy Council (判府事) and who had a name for uprightness. His great-grandfather was Geo (琚), who served King Seongjong. When Yeonsan was in the Eastern Palace, Geo was his lecturer (講官), and being strict he was disliked. He once became an inspector (掌令) and did not shrink from impeaching, so that all the officials were wary of him and called him the Tiger Inspector. His grandfather Baengnok (百祿) held office by his forebears' merit, and his father Jeong (貞) held no office.

Sunsin as a child was bright and open and not to be tied down. When he played with the other children he whittled wood into bows and arrows and played in the village, and if he met one who did not suit him he would make to shoot at his eyes, so that even grown men were sometimes wary of him and dared not pass before his gate. When he grew up he shot well and raised himself by the military examination. The Yi had made the Confucian learning their calling for generations, and it was only with Sunsin that one of them passed the military examination; and he was appointed acting clerk (奉事) of the Military Training Agency (訓練院).

Kim Gwiyeong (金貴榮), the Minister of War, had a daughter by a concubine and would have given her to Sunsin as his concubine, but Sunsin refused. When men asked the reason Sunsin said, "I have only now come out upon the road of office; how should I dare set my foot in a house of power and so plan my advancement?"

Seo Ik (徐益), a section director (正郎) of the Ministry of War, had a friend in the Military Training Agency and would have recommended him out of his turn; but Sunsin, as the officer in charge of business (掌務官) of the agency, held stubbornly that it was not right. Ik sent down a summons tally and called Sunsin and set him beneath his steps and questioned him; but Sunsin did not change his words or his face and argued straight without bending. Ik was greatly angered and threw his weight about and bore down on him, but Sunsin answered quietly and in the end was not bent in the least. Ik was high-spirited by nature and haughty toward men, so that even his fellow officials were wary of him and found it hard to argue with him. On this day the clerks who were below the stone steps all looked at one another and clicked their tongues and said, "This officer dares to stand against his own ministry; he does not look to his future." As the day drew in, Ik in shame bent and let him go. Those who knew of this came now and then to know Sunsin by it.

When he was shut in prison and how the affair would go could not be known, a certain jailer said secretly to Sunsin's nephew Bun (芬), "If a bribe is used, he can be got off." Sunsin heard it and said to Bun in anger, "If I die, I die; how should I break what is right and seek to live?" So firmly did he keep to his principle.

Sunsin was by nature sparing of words and laughter, and his bearing was correct like that of a careful and cultivated scholar; yet within he had boldness and spirit, and that he forgot his own body and died for his country was what he had built up in his ordinary days. His elder brothers Huisin (羲臣) and Yosin (堯臣) both died before him, and Sunsin took up the children they left as his own, and in the marrying of them off he always put his brothers' children first and his own after. He had talent but no destiny, and died without unfolding one part in a hundred of it; alas, it is to be lamented.

When the naval commander-in-chief was in the camp he did not slacken his watch night or day, and never took off his armor.

When he lay facing the enemy at Gyeonnaeryang (見乃梁) the several ships had already dropped anchor. In the night the moonlight was very bright, and the commander-in-chief, still in his armor, lay with his head on a drum, then suddenly rose and sat up and called those about him to bring soju, and drank one cup. Then he called all the commanders to come before him and said, "Tonight the moon is exceeding bright. The enemy are full of schemes, and that they should fall upon us at a moonless time goes without saying; but even with the moon bright they will surely come and fall upon us. We cannot but keep strict watch."

Then he had the horn blown and all the ships weigh anchor, and sent the order to the scout boats as well. The soldiers on the scouting watch happened to be fast asleep, so they were called and waked and set to wait for what should come. A good while after, a scout came hurrying to report that the enemy were coming. The moon then hung on the western hills, and the shadow of the hills lay upside down upon the sea so that one side was dim; and the enemy's ships came out of that darkness beyond counting and were about to draw near our ships. Thereupon the center force fired a great cannon and raised a shout, and the several ships all answered after it. The enemy, knowing that there was preparation, fired their muskets all at once so that the sound shook the sea and the bullets flying in fell upon the water like rain; but in the end they dared not invade and withdrew. The several commanders held him to be divinely guided.