Reporting the Enemy to the Ming, and Guarding Jeju and Namwon for Spring請具賊情奏聞。天朝且請防守濟州南原等邑及凡防春預備。啓

I your servant have long been ill; the sickness drags on, my spirit is clouded and clogged, and my remaining breath is like a thread, while even the little spirit I had is already halved. In the affairs of army and state I am truly ill fit to join the deliberations. Only, when I consider that the state's array is as precarious as a single hair while the months and years flow by and the chances of action grow ever more distant, the thought of it chills my heart unawares.

Men all worry over the business of the south and of the north. But the trouble from the northern barbarians lies at the border, while the trouble from the southern enemy lies at the ancestral shrines and the altars of the land; if it is not planned for early, afterward it cannot be caught up with. This year too is already spent, and the enemy's inward reckoning puts out its cunning a hundredfold and has yet no mind to cross the sea; if, after the spring wind comes early, there is the calamity of their stirring again, how shall it then be dealt with?

Looking with respect at Kim Su's (金睟) dispatch, the words of Genso (玄蘇) set down in it are grossly outrageous. This is not only to demand of us requests hard to comply with; toward China too they will surely do the like, making of it the thread by which to break the agreement and raise a quarrel. I your servant have feared from before that it would come to this, and now, unhappily, the course of things draws nearer and nearer to it; how should there be any end to the worry of it?

Weighing it quietly, there is more than one or two things to doubt in what Shen Weijing (沈惟敬) says and in his looks. Yet to my foolish thinking it seems that, knowing he cannot himself bring the matter to an end, he would turn the blame onto others to make a footing for himself. What is said, that "the Heavenly Envoy (天使) entered the Japanese camp too early, and so the Japanese do not gather up and go home," is just this: it is to turn the blame onto the Heavenly Envoy. And in now having Shen Maoshi (沈懋時) come and ask for an envoy from our country, he surely knows our country will not be willing, and would seize on that for a pretext and turn onto us the blame for the investiture not being accomplished. In truth, whether the enemy withdraw or not does not hang on our granting an envoy; they have a foul design of their own. If Shen Maoshi arrives, the framing of words in reply is a matter of very great moment, and the Border Defense Council should be made to prepare the response beforehand.

Since the Ming envoy came out, not one of all the border reports has been hastened to the Ming court. In general it is because the course of what lies ahead could not be reckoned beforehand and no one thing could be pointed to. Now the Ming envoy has already entered the enemy's camp and the enemy's true state is overturned in this way, so it is one thing to be done that our country should send a dispatch (咨文) to Liaodong on such circumstances, by the practice of ordinary times for reporting border affairs, to be passed on to the Pacification Office.

Since the enemy troops are now in one corner at Busan, our country's naval and land commanders think only this place urgent and give no thought to other routes. By my reckoning Jeju is much to be worried over. In days past the enemy's envoy Yosira (要時羅) said openly that they meant to invade Jeju, so it may be known that this enemy is slavering over it. In general Jeju lies in the southwestern sea of our country and is also near to the land of the Central Plain. If this ground is seized by the enemy it could not be taken back though the strength of the whole world were brought against it, and from the whole West Sea to the bounds of Hwanghae and Pyeongan there would be no array by which to hold out. This enemy knows the lie of things best of all, and it cannot be said that their design will not come from here. It is heard that Jeju is very much alone, its soldiers and provisions exhausted, and plague and famine there worse than elsewhere. A plan to add soldiers and hold it firmly must be worked out to the full and put into effect with urgency. It is right also that the tribute goods that might be eased from the people be reduced altogether for a fixed number of years, so that the people's strength may unfold and their minds be given wholly to the defense.

Between Honam and Yeongnam there is no place fit for blocking and holding, and there is only the one district of Namwon; yet its magistracy has long been vacant and no one has taken up the post to this day. In the laying up of grain, the drilling of soldiers, and the holding of the wall there is no arrangement at all. If this place is lost there is nothing else to rely on, and I your servant worry over it quietly. Here too it is right to press the new Prefect to hasten to his post like a shooting star and to be held to defending it to the death.

Gyeongsang Province is sorely broken and hurt, and the drilling of soldiers there has not yet been dealt with. Next to it, Chungcheong Province alone is the hedge of the capital, and of the province's soldiers those who have already been through training are several thousand and more. Here too, if a commander is set in charge and the places where their array lies are looked over beforehand and used, they may still be relied on in urgency. The court at first sent the Inspector Yi Si-bal (李時發) to take charge of the training wholly; but when it came to battle Yi Si-bal could not use them and another commander used them in his place, so that there is no lack of the harm of changing the ranks and altering the agreements. This is what is called the reared not being the used and the used not being the reared, and it is deeply shunned by the military. Here too let a letter be sent down to the Supreme Commissioner, so that the musketeers already drilled within the province, however many, and the archers, however many, and the swordsmen, however many, be all added together and each company given to one commander to lead, with the chief general issuing their discipline; only then will the soldiers' hearts be settled and there be no harm of scattering and confusion when they face the work.

It is also heard that the soldiers of each district are taken up district by district by the officials within the province, each for himself, so that there are soldiers of the Circuit Commissioner, soldiers of the Army and the Navy Commanders, soldiers of the Defense Commander, soldiers of the Inspector, and soldiers of the magistrate, separately; and that commands issue from many places and the documents are in confusion, so that none knows what to follow. This is a harm long piled up in our country from before, and the source of the confusion of military administration always comes from here; and it is said that Chungcheong Province and such parts still keep to the old habit. This too must be amended quickly before it is right.

How many soldiers Gwon In-ryong (權仁龍), Jo Gwang-ik (趙光翼), Han Hyeon (韓絢), and Kim Si-yak (金時若) have gathered cannot be known. But if, according as each has got many or few, they are inspected for whether they are picked men or not and are provided with bows and arrows and clothing and armor and made to take the chief commander's agreements, they too can bear the use of one corner. None of this can be left off in providing beforehand for this spring's defense.

As these are the words of a sick man, there will surely be much that is thin and wanting in them. Yet unable of myself to leave off the small and humble sincerity of worry for the state, I have roused my clouded spirit and sent up this writing, and the words have no order. Would it not be well to send it down to the Border Defense Council to be weighed and put into effect?