Presenting the Jixiao Xinshu進紀効新書。啓
臣前在京都甞因李德馨得見唐將戚金所借紀効新書德馨又傳金之言曰爾國欲禦倭非先太傅法不可所謂先太傅卽金之父繼光嘉靖年間爲東南名將至今浙兵之强皆繼光所訓鍊臣略窺其書一二宏闊微密倉卒未能遍究端緒而要爲萬世不刋之書第以索還之急令吏輩數人分卷謄出携歸嶺南欲以活字印之而未及焉只又傅一本付監司韓孝純使留道內其初本仍在臣行槖中書畫未精且未粧䌙不足以上備。睿覽而書中所載皆今所講求而未得其方者若前此未經。上達則秘而不布亦甚可惜故敢此投進但當初讎校未畢間有錯字缺句而其論器械製造文字亦頗有難解處如蒙賜覽卽下備局更爲精校而其未曉處又使聰敏之人及此南將未還之前給難辨質至於布置營陣束伍分部之法尤我國將士所未料理亦當按此書而辨承口受以開迷味且仍令隨行於。天將營下目驗其指揮約束之狀了然無疑然後庶可擬倣摹效以求實用矣
When your servant was formerly in the capital he saw, through Yi Deokhyeong (李德馨), the Jixiao xinshu (紀効新書) lent by the Ming general Qi Jin (戚金). Yi Deokhyeong also passed on Qi Jin's words: "If your country would ward off the Japanese, it cannot be done but by the method of the late Grand Mentor (先太傅)." The one called the late Grand Mentor is Qi Jin's father, Qi Jiguang (戚繼光). In the Jiajing (嘉靖) years he was a famed general of the southeast, and the strength of the Zhejiang troops today is all owing to Qi Jiguang's training.
Your servant peered roughly into one or two things in that book, and it is broad and withal minute; in the suddenness of the time he could not search out all its threads, but in sum it is a book that cannot be done away with for ten thousand generations. Only, the demand for its return was pressing, so he had several clerks copy it out by volumes, meaning then to carry it back to Yeongnam and print it with movable type, but this was not accomplished. He also had one copy made and gave it to Governor Han Hyosun (韓孝純) to be kept in the province, and the first copy is still in your servant's baggage. The hand is not fine, and it is neither dressed nor bound, so that it falls short of Your Majesty's looking upon it; yet what the book holds is all that we now study and cannot find the method of. If it has never been presented before, it would be a great pity to keep it hidden and not spread it, and therefore he ventures to present it thus.
Only, the proofing was not finished at the first, so there are wrong characters and dropped phrases here and there, and the writing that treats of making weapons is in places rather hard to understand. When you have looked at it, let it be sent down at once to the Border Defense Council (備邊司) to be proofed in detail again, and let a man of understanding be set to ask out and make clear the hard places before the southern generals go home. The method of drawing up formations and of binding and dividing ranks is the more beyond the reckoning of our country's generals and soldiers, so this too must be studied in this book and received by word of mouth, to open what is dark. And only after following along in the camps of the Ming generals and seeing with one's own eyes how they command and keep order, until it is clear and without doubt, can it be copied and put to real use.
Interlinear notes 1
癸巳四月二十九日在海州
The twenty-ninth day of the fourth month of the Gyesa year, at Haeju.