Report on the Attendants Who Are to Follow the King因。傳敎論跟隨陪臣事。啓

"In this one matter of the attendants (陪臣), the three offices are of one mind and do not cease to debate it; if there is no great benefit in it, it seems there is no need to force it. My chronic illness and the clouding of my spirit have of late grown worse still, so that I certainly cannot bear even the ordinary business of state. I am pained and stifled of myself, and a day passes like a year. How can such a matter as this be settled by me? I only hope that you lords will deliberate together and handle it well." So His Majesty handed down an edict, to be told to the Border Defense Council (備邊司).

This matter arose at first because the Ming envoy (天使) pressed us urgently and would not cease; wishing, on the pretext of paying respects, to look at the same time into the enemy's true state, we detailed a military officer. Then came Hwang Sin's (黃愼) dispatches, one after another, and because it was doubted that a military officer could manage matters hard to handle once he had reached that place, there was the argument for sending a civil official. All of this came out of circumstances that left no choice.

The matter has long been hard to settle, and the signs of success or failure are hard even for a clear-sighted man to foresee. The Ming envoy has already crossed the sea, so talk of following after him also seems to come too late. Whether by this the business can indeed be brought to a sound end, how can we your servants be certain? Only, Hwang Sin has already spoken of it within the enemy's camp, and the herald officer went out long ago; we fear that even should we now wish to halt it, it is beyond reach. And if we do halt it, then we ought to rebuff and break it off in stern words, so that even should it come to provoking their anger and hastening a breach, there would be no leisure to look back. Neither do we your servants know whether our country's strength today can bear this. None of it is for the foolish judgment of your servants to settle.

It has been said from of old that to debate a matter is easy and to handle a matter is hard. The censors stand in the office of debating matters, and so they strive only to be straight and decisive and do not look to other things. We your servants stand in the place of handling matters, and so we think a thousand times and weigh a hundred times and cannot escape bending and minuteness. What we argue differs, but the wish to plan for the affairs of state is the same.

Only, we your servants are of no account by nature, dull and mean, and yet we sit in the place of the Border Defense Council and have not brought forth even one plan to loosen the indignation of gods and men. As for not wishing to send a man to the country of our enemy, in what does our heart differ from the censors'? It is merely that circumstances are hard, and so we have made this argument for holding on and getting by; this is the guilt of your servants, and shame will remain over even after we die. Now we have received the command to deliberate again a second and a third time, yet we do not know what to say. It rests with Your Majesty's decision alone.