Requesting That Corvée Be Cut to Ease the People請裁省民役以紓民力。啓
兵亂之後重以飢饉疾疫千里之內無復人烟不過數月生類殆盡事之痛迫莫過於此其中畿甸尤甚凡便民之政所當勿論大小急急擧行如救焚拯溺然後庶可有一分之效常時各官民戶貢物進上名目多端今於草創之際凡百祭享以至供上等事一切從簡比舊只存十分之二三戶曹急急通融商量實用之數樽節裁定又於郡邑察其焚蕩最甚及其稍完處可減者减之可存者存之明白知委使人民曉然知之然後貪官猾吏及各司下人等不敢刀蹬作弊孑遺之民得蒙一分之惠此事最急一刻不可遲緩前在海州至於。敎書下諭而今旣歲暮民間尙未知蠲减仍存之數剝膚推髓慘不忍言而公家亦無所益極爲寒心請令戶曹數日內急速磨鍊如京畿全咸少紓民力其他道則參商緊歇量宜裁减使公私兼濟宜當此非常時貢物詳定之比只取今年所納損其應用之外而已捧承。傳施行何如
After the war, famine and pestilence have come on top of it, so that within a thousand li there is again no smoke of dwellings, and before a few months pass the living are all but gone; in painfulness and urgency nothing goes beyond this. Among them Gyeonggi is the worst. In every policy for easing the people, great or small alike, it must be carried out in haste, as one puts out a fire or pulls out a drowning man, before there will be the least fruit.
In ordinary times the tribute goods and the offerings from the households of the several districts were many in name and in kind; but now, when all things begin anew, let all the sacrifices and offerings and the like be made simple, leaving only two or three parts in ten against what was before. Let the Ministry of Taxation (戶曹) reckon it in haste and fix the amount really to be used, sparing and cutting it down; and let it also look to which districts are the worst burnt out and which are tolerably whole, cutting where it should cut and leaving where it should leave, and make it known plainly so that the people know it clearly. Only then will grasping officials and crafty clerks and the underlings of the several offices not dare to play their tricks, and the people who remain receive some little grace.
This matter is the most urgent and cannot be put off for a moment. Before, when you were at Haeju, you even sent down a royal admonition upon it; yet now, with the year drawing to its close, among the people it is still not known what has been cut and what has been left standing. The cruelty of flaying their skin and pressing out their marrow cannot bear the telling, and it profits the country nothing; it is most grievous. Your servant begs that the Ministry of Taxation be made to settle it in haste within a few days, so that in such places as Gyeonggi all be cut and the people's strength eased a little, and in the other provinces what is pressing and what is light be weighed and cut to measure, that country and people be saved together. This is not like the settling of tribute in detail in ordinary times; it only takes what is to be paid this year and cuts away what is beyond what ought to be used. Would it not be well to receive an instruction and have it carried out?
Interlinear notes 1
癸巳十一月一日
The first day of the eleventh month of the Gyesa year.