Requesting That an Aide Be Sent to Ready Fodder and Grain請遣從事官整齊一路蒭粮。啓

Your servant's illness deepens by the day, and at such a time as this he lies abed many days and cannot offer even a small labor, so that his guilt deserves ten thousand deaths. A few days ago, being summoned, he forced his sick body to the ministers' hall (賓廳), and after that the illness grew worse. When the pain rises his whole body seems to come undone and sweat runs over him so that he cannot hold himself up; he cannot hope to mend within a day or two. Yet the providing of army grain along the road the Ming troops pass grows more urgent by the day. Dispatches have been sent again and again with repeated and strict charge, but the hearts of men are scattered and few magistrates give their minds to it, so that when the time comes much goes amiss; and fearing that the great work will be spoiled, your servant cannot master his anxiety. The other measures have already been handled in detail by the ministers' hall and the Border Defense Council (備邊司).

In general, of the army grain now stored in the several districts along the road, Uiju alone is the most ample; Jeongju, though called a great district, has only some two hundred seok left at present, and if the grain of Guseong be moved in time it seems the supply can be kept up. In your servant's thought, when the Ming troops set out let them carry three days' rations from Uiju; and if on the first day they lodge at Yangchaek Station (良策驛), let Yongcheon add one day's rations so that the three days' rations remain untouched; and if on the next day they lodge at Imban Station (林畔驛), let Seoncheon likewise add one day's rations as at Yangchaek Station, so that the three days' rations remain untouched; and let it be done the same way when they reach Jeongju and Gasan. As for Anju, let five or six hundred seok of grain from Yonggang and the other two districts be shipped by boat and berthed below Nogang (老江), and when the Ming troops arrive let Anju again distribute it; then from Uiju to Anju they will be supplied all along the road from the grain of those places, and the three days' rations carried from Uiju will remain, and with these they can go as far as Pyeongyang.

If the enemy, hearing that a great army is coming, abandon the walls and flee southward, the grain left at Pyeongyang can keep up the supply; and even if not, once the Ming troops have come beneath the walls it will not be hard to carry the grain of the three districts on men's backs and horses' loads, so that no plan is handier than this. Looking respectfully at the dispatch that came from Liaodong, it says that our country's army grain is not ample, and they have gone so far as to bring dry rations with them; their intent to be considerate and to make things easy, and so to accomplish the great work, is utter. If with this the case be clearly set forth to the Ming generals and an understanding reached, it seems there can be no reason they will not comply. Only the fodder would seem heavy to carry, so let it be made ready at each post station along the road. Would it not be well to deliberate and dispose of this intent?

When Kang Saung (康士雄) went the other day, your servant at once had six hundred seok of white rice from the three districts shipped to Jeongju; but if Jeongju has already had the grain of Guseong brought over, the supply can be met without the grain of the three districts, so it is very handy and fitting to have the three districts' grain moved for a while to a place near Anju and held there in waiting. He consulted the ministers, and their intent too was so. Only, one man such as a royal messenger (宣傳官) must needs be sent apart and given sole charge of it before it can be done in time. If your servant's illness mends he ought to hasten out upon the road and look to it and keep it in order himself; but unhappily his illness is such as this, and so it is fitting that the aide (從事官) Sin Gyeongjin (辛慶晉) be sent hurrying ahead of the term to make it ready. Therefore he ventures to report.