The Burden of Frontier Duty on Pyeongan's Examination Graduates論平安道出身防守之弊。啓

The report of the aide-de-camp Han Jungyeom (韓浚謙) says thus: 「The chulsin (出身) along the river in Pyeongan Province, in the days when they were soldiers, had each his boin to furnish him provisions, and stayed always at his own garrison post, knowing nothing of the hardship of going on guard duty. But once they had passed the examination, their boin were all stripped from them, and, their name being chulsin, the duties of guarding by turns follow one upon another, with no fixed order from the first, so that whether they come sparse or thick comes out of the whim of the moment. The chulsin below Changseong, when the ice freezes, are divided out to assist at the several posts within the district; after the ice breaks they are again divided out to guard the several posts upriver; and at the turn of autumn into winter they are moved again to guard at the several forts of Manpo. Not a handful of rice nor a foot of cloth has anywhere to come from, so that bearing their weapons on their own backs and furnishing their provisions by their own strength they stand long at the frontier watch and have not a day at home. If this business be not altered soon, there is no manner of posture in which they can endure it.」

Your servant too had heard before of the grievance by which the chulsin of Pyeongan Province resent and suffer, and had already submitted a request that it be dealt with. Afterwards he heard further that among the chulsin of Pyeongyang and those parts there are some who have hanged themselves, and some who have hung their red certificates of passing upon the gate of the government office and slipped away in flight; what he has heard is startling. Now, seeing Han Jungyeom's report, it is no wonder at all that it has come to this pass.

In general the chulsin within the province are all of them soldiers whose skill was picked out in ordinary times. Before, each had his boin to furnish provisions, and there was besides an order of turns, so that there were set times of going and coming. But since becoming chulsin they have neither boin to help them nor turns in which to rest by rotation; bound the whole year round to guard duty upon the road, they have not leisure even to eat. Measured by the common feelings of men, it is deeply pitiable.

Your servant has sought a plan for dealing with it but has not found a fitting one. If their boin be given them again as in former days, and if moreover, in calling them out, the sparseness and frequency be fixed after the manner of the old order of rotation so as to rest their strength, it would be somewhat better. This done, when they go on guard let the number of days served be reckoned and made the ladder by which they advance in office; and let those who have already risen to the sixth rank and obtained a substantive post be at last released from guard duty, their boin being taken back and given to another: then the hearts of the people would be somewhat eased. Today there is this way of dealing with it and no other. How would it be to have the Ministry of War take it up urgently in deliberation and carry it out, and so loose the frontier people from their hanging upside down?