Report on What Should Be Done in Gyeongsang慶尙道應行事宜。啓

Item. From of old, in times of war a stockade was always first set up to make rugged ground a place to lean on, so that the soldiers and the people should have something to trust and rely on and the old and weak a place to hide themselves, and all the public and private stores were kept within it. When the enemy came they held the rugged ground; when the enemy went they came down from the hills and plowed and sowed. Where one place was like this all the others were likewise, so that at ten-odd li when near and at scores of li when far the layered camps looked across at one another and their array was joined. Then not only were the people protected, but the enemy too could be blocked; this is a matter of the utmost urgency and the utmost moment. Therefore, even where the commanders and magistrates do not know to proceed in this way, if someone in the countryside who has understanding now and then gathers the village people and arranges the plan, the district can still be kept whole.

Now the feeling of men both within and without is that the Japanese enemy's force is too great to withstand, and so they give not a thought to laying plans and holding. Therefore even the people, who have no understanding, pass it on from one to another and take it for a model, hiding in the thickets and moving from place to place, seeking only to eke out their lives from morning to evening, and setting their minds still less on plowing and sowing. For this reason, without the enemy even arriving, the collapse of the south grows worse by the day and there is no hope of recovering it again. This is truly heartbreaking.

Now when those who deliberate speak of such things as holding the mountain fortresses, they say there is neither food nor soldiers and that it cannot be done at once. This is to know the one and not the other. If it were a matter of raising a great work, building walls and using much of men's strength, that is not what can be accomplished today. But if at the vital and rugged places of the mountain villages the scattered people are called together and made to raise a rough stockade by their own strength, and seed and oxen are supplied so that plowing on the one hand and holding on the other becomes the plan, this is truly what the people themselves wish for. The only trouble is that those who are officials do not direct and manage it, and because commands do not issue from above the people do not do it gladly.

Now to speak of Gyeongsang Province: Gimhae (金海) and Ungcheon (熊川) have just become the enemy's lairs, so that there can be no talk of gathering and massing there; and Changwon (昌原), being very close to the enemy's lairs, has likewise become empty ground. Besides these, Haman (咸安) lies south of Jeongjin (鼎津), some fifty-odd li from Changwon on the east and thirty li from Goseong (固城) on the south. Though the Japanese enemy has burned and swept it several times, on its western side many of the remaining people are still there. Truly, if at the first withdrawal of the enemy the moment were seized to call them together and a few camps placed at chosen vital and rugged points, then not only would Haman alone be kept whole by this, but it could also be a hedge for Uiryeong (宜寧) and Jinju (晉州). And Goseong too is said to be roughly whole still; if Haman also gradually settles and gathers so that it and Goseong lean on one another in array, it may well be looked for that the coastal districts will gradually be made up again by this.

Why is it that the thinking of the various commanders reaches nowhere far, so that they gather together at Uiryeong and take Jeongjin alone for their boundary, counting all beyond it as abandoned ground? They do not ask whether the people come or go, and the enemy's roaming at will is taken as a matter of course. In days past, when Seong Yun-mun (成允文) was Army Commander, ambush parties could still be sent out and divided among the bounds of Jinhae (鎭海) and the rugged rocks, and so the enemy coming out from Changwon and Geoje (巨濟) still did not dare do as they pleased, and the people could get a little help from it. After Yun-mun was replaced, the one who followed him left everything to a state of mutual forgetting. Therefore the remaining people scatter and vanish by the day, and when they are plundered besides by scattered bands of the enemy it cannot be blocked. This is truly heartbreaking.

The Japanese enemy are skilled with the musket and with spear and sword and hold their lives lightly in close fighting, so that if our soldiers would match strength with them in the open field it is truly hard to overcome them. But if ground is chosen whose array is rugged and firm and which has no woods or rocks on any side, or, even if it be an earthen hill, a place with nowhere at all to catch hold and climb or to look down from, and palisades and ramparts are raised and many stone-laden carts set at the four corners to await them, then though the enemy be ten million they will be hard to break. For when the lie of the land is such, meeting their toil with our ease, none of the enemy's strong points can be brought to bear, while we can devote our strength and hold them down. How so? Though the musket carries far, when it is fired straight up at the sky from the foot of the hill, how is it to wound a man? And as for their skill in close fighting with spear and sword, at the foot of a hill it cannot be brought to bear. The battle of Haengju (幸州) in days past was of this kind.

If it is done in this way, there will be nothing in the fields to plunder, and in a few days their force will be worn and harried and will withdraw of itself. Seizing the moment when they go back slackly, let stout soldiers be sent out and ambushes laid in the woods, to meet and cut them off at place after place, striking now at their tail and now at their waist; then the enemy's force will wane of itself and ours will unfold of itself. What Zhao Chongguo (趙充國) called "the Qiang (羌族) are easy to break by stratagem but hard to crush by arms" is what this means.

An Ok (安沃), Magistrate of Haman, is said to do his charge rather well, so that the hearts of the people have not come to loathing and distress. This man also had a name from the first as a good fighter, from his time in the Northern Province (北道). Let the Field Marshal (元帥) be made to give him clear directions separately in the sense reported above, and at Haman's strategic points, such as Mount Bangeo (防禦山) and Mount Yeohang (餘航山), let the people of the whole district be gathered and earnestly admonished, and palisades raised at one place or at two or three, to serve as ground to enter and hold. In ordinary times let many lookout posts be set so that the enemy's coming is known; and now, with this spring season, let him lead the people at the foot of the hills and open the garrison fields on a large scale, taking the basket and the spade in his own hands without fail and sharing the toil with the people.

Haman's soil is rich, first in the whole province: for every majigi of paddy it yields four or five seom in autumn, and the profit of it is beyond telling. If this is done in earnest, then not only the people of Haman but the people of all four quarters will hear of it and gather in, and before long a great camp will be formed. Let them be drilled accordingly in the intervals of farming, and when there is trouble let them join strength with the main army and stand like horns; for a plan of defense there is truly nothing greater than this. And if An Ok does this charge well with manifest avail, it would be no bad thing to promote him out of turn, making of it a spur to the rest.

Yet this is only to speak of the one district of Haman. Besides it, the magistrates of the whole line of districts, Goseong, Jinhae, Gonyang (昆陽), Sacheon (泗川), and Hadong (河東), should all be charged with this work and held to producing avail; and let the number of people they have called together this year, whether many or few, the extent of land they have plowed and opened, whether broad or narrow, and how well or ill they have arranged their plans for blocking and holding, be assessed one by one, so that they cannot be slipshod as in days past. Would it not be well to send word to the Supreme Field Marshal and to the Pacification Inspector and the Circuit Commissioner that those with avail be openly promoted, those who are slothful and do no work be punished beyond the letter of the law, and those who are soft and weak and cannot bear the charge be sifted out and dismissed one by one?

Item. The lower course of the Nakdong River enters the sea at Gimhae, and above it passes Chirwon (㓒原), Yeongsan (靈山), Changnyeong (昌寧), Hyeonpung (玄風), Seongju (星州), Indong (仁同), and Seonsan (善山) to reach Sangju (尙州). Another branch runs from Uiryeong to Jinju, which is what is called the Gi River (岐江); a little to the west is Jeongjin, and all of these are waterways for boats.

In the Imjin and Gyesa years the enemy troops all carried army grain and weapons by river boat and came and went without hindrance, yet men did not know to set obstacles along the river. Only Gwak Jae-u (郭再祐) drove wooden stakes into the midst of the river at Masuwon (馬首院) and such places, so that the enemy's boats were caught on the stakes as they came down with the current, and then laid an ambush on the bank and struck swiftly, taking more than forty of the enemy's boats. Afterward the enemy's boats were caught again in midstream, and the soldiers on the bank stood round them and held them off for eight days in all; but because the enemy in other places came in a body to the rescue, they could not all be taken. Had there been cannon and fire-arrows then to shoot thickly from the bank, the enemy would surely have perished to a man in the water; that it was not so was only because the weapons were not provided.

Now those who spy out the enemy's camps come from time to time and say that the enemy are providing many river boats and making a plan to move by the river. This is where their foul design lies, and it is not idle talk; shall our soldiers take it as empty words and not know to make ready? If wooden stakes are driven below Jeongjin and in the lower course of the Nakdong and at the crossings of the several shallow fords, the enemy coming by water can be blocked. Yet men will surely plead that there is not manpower enough.

Where there are hills along the river, Mount Wolna (月那山) above Jeongjin for instance, the oaks seem to touch the sky and stand right above the water. If several hundred soldiers were sent out, or monk-soldiers used, to fell them and float them down and drive stakes at the strategic points to block the river way, then not only would the enemy's boats coming up from downstream be blocked, but the enemy troops of the Left Province crossing over by the shallow fords could be blocked as well. This too is a matter to make known to the various commanders, to be put into effect as the occasion is seen.

Item. The monk-general Yujeong (惟政) is just now minded to repair the mountain fortress of Yonggi (龍起山城), but fears his own strength is not enough. Let the Circuit Commissioner of that province help him with labor as is convenient and also find him seed, so that the monk-general Yujeong may lead his hundred-odd soldiers and work the garrison fields at the foot of the mountain, making it his plan to lay up grain.

Item. It is said that the Border Pacification Commissioner Yi Bin (李薲) worked the garrison fields largely with his soldiers last year and that what he got was fairly ample. Now Yi Bin has been replaced, and if on account of his replacement it is scattered and nearly all lost, then this year's seed will have to be sought again from elsewhere, which is of the greatest concern. Would it not be well to send word to the Pacification Inspector to look into and make plain, one by one, how many seom came from Yi Bin's garrison fields last year, how much was used, and how much now remains, and to have the Army Commander Kim Eung-seo (金應瑞) take charge of it for use in this year's farming and report the actual figures with urgency?

Item. In ordinary times, whether a magistrate did his duty well or ill was something the Provincial Governor disposed of only after waiting for the jeonchoe (殿最), the rating of officials' performance. But even what is called the jeonchoe had the empty and the real mixed together in it, and slander and praise confused the facts, so that men were neither spurred nor chastened by it, and many who had botched their office got off by makeshift.

Now the lower districts of this Gyeongsang Province are all wasted and broken and are ground where the enemy is; if the magistrates look on them as in ordinary times and are slipshod, the work will be hard to accomplish. Still weightier than those elsewhere are the magistrates of the districts of Sangju, Seonsan, Geumsan (金山), Gaeryeong (開寧), Indong, Daegu (大丘), Seongju, Cheongdo (淸道), Changnyeong, Yeongsan, Hyeonpung, Goryeong (高靈), Chirwon, Miryang (密陽), Eonyang (彥陽), Yeongil (迎日), and Janggi (長鬐), and of Haman, Jinhae, Goseong, Sacheon, Hadong, Gonyang, Samga (三嘉), and Danseong (丹城). In the governance of urging and overseeing them, of promoting and dismissing them, and of keeping them in order, the Provincial Governor cannot slacken in the least.

To speak of what has been heard at court: Yi Yeong (李英), Magistrate of Changnyeong, and Jo Ho-ik (曹好益), Magistrate of Seongju, have a name for governing well, and Yi Gwang-ak (李光岳), Magistrate of Gonyang, is also said to be diligent and able, though whether this is empty or real I do not know. Of the rest I know nothing at all. Yi Gi-bin (李箕賓), Prefect of Seonsan, was moreover discussed at court and replaced; and it is also heard that Yi Seong-im (李聖任), Magistrate of Cheongdo, keeps a large household at the office and burdens the clerks and the people, but as this is a matter heard at second hand it is hard to warrant as surely trustworthy. If such a thing truly is so, the Provincial Governor still less ought to leave it aside and say nothing.

In general, today's magistrates have no separate business of documents and of balancing accounts within set terms (期會), nor of judging lawsuits and providing hospitality. They have only to take the basket and the spade in their own hands and love the people with the utmost sincerity, so that the scattered return and gather and the fields and plains are gradually opened, and further, as their strength allows, to provide the means of blocking the enemy; the record of their governing goes no further than this. Those who do this well are to be called good, and those who do not do it well should be cast aside. Would it not be well to make known to the Circuit Commissioner that the magistrates of each of the districts above be appraised one by one by the actual traces now at hand, and be set down separately and reported without waiting for the jeonchoe, to serve as the ground for disposing of them?

Item.

Geoje has just become an enemy lair, but as for those of its remaining people who have scattered out, let the Magistrate An Wi (安衛) be charged in particular to call them together to the full and gather them for the present in the empty ground of Namhae (南海), and this year let them in particular be made to plow and sow so that they have a way to live; and if the enemy happily withdraws, let it be their plan to return to the district and hold it. But Geoje lies in the midst of the sea, very far from where the Governor of the upper province is, so that in the circumstances the Governor cannot hear and know whether the Magistrate's arrangements go well or ill. Let this be charged wholly to the Left Navy Commander Bae Seol (裴楔), to inspect it himself, and let him report together with the Governor when its avail is awaited.

Item.

Among the camps and forts (鎭堡) along the coast, let those where the enemy is just now staying, such as Dongnae (東萊) and Seosaengpo (西生浦) and Gimhae and Ungcheon, be set aside and not discussed for the present. As for whether the several camps westward from Goseong, Dangpo (唐浦), Soeulbipo (所乙非浦), and Saryang (蛇梁) now exist or not, and where this or that camp commander now is; and further, if there are pojakgan (鮑作干) of the coast and men who were always good at the oar still living there as before and making their living by fishing, let the border commanders each call them together and settle them in peace; and let it be known from the number they have called and comforted, whether many or few, whether each is fit for his duty or not, and let the facts be looked into and reported and reward and punishment carried out.

Item.

By right reasoning the Supreme Field Marshal ought to keep his camp in the middle of the province and command the military affairs of both the Left and the Right Provinces together. But since Regional Vice Commander Liu Ting (劉綎) withdrew, Daegu has not been convenient for staying, and he has moved to the Right Province. Therefore he is very far in array from where the various commanders of Gyeongju (慶州) are, and cannot reckon and keep all matters in order, which is of the greatest concern. Though the Field Marshal cannot go round each camp in person, let him send his aides out by division to keep them always in order, to muster the soldiers and the arms and gear, to arrange the army grain, and to comfort the troops, so that there is no harm of things being blocked and cut off and left neglected.

Item.

The Border Pacification Commissioner Yi Bin has already been replaced, so that in the Right Province there is only the Army Commander Kim Eung-seo, and should there be a clash to worry over, he is utterly alone and weak. The court would send one commander to lead troops and join strength with him, adding to the defenses for the spring season, but fears only that the army grain will not hold out. Send word to the Field Marshal as well that he reckon with urgency the array, and how many men and for how many days the provisions now at hand can bear, and further how much is to be carried from Honam, and report with urgency, sparing neither day nor night.

Item. Because military law is not strict, men's hearts are slack and nothing in the work can be done. Last year, when the enemy troops unexpectedly drove far and broke in suddenly, the several districts crumbled like tiles at the mere sight of the enemy's bearing; and though there were officials to hold the walls and guard the land and commanders to lead troops and block the way, all fled and hid and avoided the enemy, and there was not one place where they were blocked. Because this has become habit and is taken as a matter of course, the mind of the border commanders today is that if the enemy comes they have only thought of flight, with no will to give up their lives and die for the state and block the enemy by dying. This is utterly heartbreaking. Hereafter, if there truly is such a one, the court will by no means pardon him, great or small. Would it not be well to make known along with this that the Field Marshal charge them beforehand and again and keep them in order, so that there is no repenting afterward?