Urging Kim Eung-seo and Go Eon-baek to Work as One責勵金應瑞高彥伯協心成事。啓

The affairs of the state are now urgent, yet the various commanders in place after place do not hold it weighty to pledge their hearts to striking the enemy, but quarrel over petty grievances, so that there are signs of no small discord, revealed again and again in their dispatches. This is always strange and lamentable.

Looking with respect at the separate record submitted by Seo Seong (徐渻), what first stirred up the quarrel between Go Eon-baek (高彥伯) and Kim Eung-seo (金應瑞) and the rest was nothing more than the high or low place of their seats, which is truly not worth even a single laugh. Go Eon-baek and Kim Eung-seo and the rest have exerted themselves in the camps and all have merit; they are men on whom the state alike relies. Now, by the royal admonition (下諭) of the other day, the matter has already been cleared away and they are glad with one another, so there would seem to be nothing to worry about.

Only the matter of the seating that Seo Seong discussed ought to be settled by the court, so as to stop quarrels in days to come. In our court the order of seating when officials of the capital and of the provinces meet together is laid down in the Gyeongguk daejeon (經國大典), and that is what should be followed; it cannot be shifted higher or lower by some other argument. The Gyeongguk daejeon says that whenever officials sit together they follow their ranks without exception, and the Provincial Military Commander (節度使) and the Defense Commander (防禦使) are alike envoys bearing the royal command. Go Eon-baek is already a Grand Master of Excellent Rightness (嘉義大夫) and Kim Eung-seo a Grand Master of Excellent Goodness (嘉善大夫), so the order of their sitting together is perfectly clear. How can the Provincial Military Commander be called a vassal of the border (藩臣) and looked upon as a magistrate, and a Grand Master of Excellent Rightness be placed below a Grand Master of Excellent Goodness? This is why the quarrel arose.

Hong Gye-nam (洪季男) is Magistrate of Yeongcheon and Deung Hui-hyeon (鄧希玄) is Magistrate of Uiseong, and both hold the concurrent post of Assistant Defense General (助防將); but their regular and their concurrent posts are all below the Army and Navy Commanders, so there is no ground for them to stand as equals. Yet the Supreme Field Marshal has made Hong Gye-nam and Deung Hui-hyeon his own Guard Generals (衛將) and let them exchange official documents with the Army Commander and the Defense Commander on equal terms, and for this there is even less ground. How can one cast aside the order of high and low in office and follow an order that for a time divided up the sections within the army, setting them out in the same rank as a minister entrusted with a whole region? Here the handling and the issuing of commands have not met what is fitting; they have made men's hearts unwilling to submit and have raised trouble where there was none.

It is the Field Marshal's own charge to bring the various commanders into harmony, to settle and restrain them, to dissolve their angry and quarrelsome spirit, and to make them of one mind and joined in strength so as to accomplish the king's work (王事). Long ago Yang Yi (楊儀) and Wei Yan (魏延) contended with one another, but because Kongming (孔明) was Field Marshal, to the end of their lives they did not dare show a crossed face, and each gave his talent to the full and won merit in battle, truly because the handling of them was fitting.

Would it not be well to send down a letter in this sense to Gwon Yul (權慄) and Seo Seong, that they may follow and carry it out, and likewise to admonish the various commanders in each camp alike, spurring them with loyalty and righteousness, so that they are held to joining their hearts and accomplishing the work?