Salt Boiling and Garrison Farms in Pyeongan to Supply the Army請平安道煮鹽屯田以補軍餉。啓

The other matters of Pyeongan we mean now to take in hand as our strength allows. Only, the provisions of each county are every one of them empty. By the register (成册) that province sent up, in the one prefecture of Pyeongyang there are but some eight hundred piculs of rice and some two thousand seven hundred piculs of beans; and if Pyeongyang is thus, the other counties may be guessed at.

Those of old who laid great plans always made food plentiful first and troops plentiful after, and said that if it could not be helped they would sooner cast away the troops than cast away the food. Now the food is short like this; what business can be done? This is the very worry that presses upon us. Every last plan for providing goods must be raised without one omitted.

If salt were boiled as is convenient at the places in three counties where salt is got, and exchanged for grain with the people of the mountain valleys at Seongcheon, Gangdong and those parts above the Daedong River, so that both public and private are served, then several thousand piculs might be had each year. Again, the abandoned dike at Deongmulgae (德物箇) in Yeongyu (永柔) has rich soil and might be broken into fields and grain got from it. Kim Sae (金璽), a bongsa living in that county, is a man of learning with a mind for the affairs of state; he asks of himself to take charge of the garrison farm and says he will manage it in every way and get grain to add to the government's store, and his intent is commendable.

It seems convenient and profitable that this man be appointed garrison farm officer and sent down, and that the oxen within the province be gathered together so that the plowing and sowing be done in season and, after the autumn harvest, stored at Yeongyu mountain fortress to serve as army grain; wherefore we venture to report.