Urgent Report on the Enemy, and Requesting Troops to Relieve Pyongyang馳。啓賊兵形止及請抄發軍卒馳救平壤狀

Of the posture of the enemy's soldiers and of the receiving and sending on of the Ming men, your servant already reported in haste yesterday. The Japanese came out one after another from the hour of the hare yesterday, and their number was not less than a thousand odd. Dividing into bands they came out by turns, running to and fro and making as though they would presently cross the river, firing many lead shot, and all day long the two sides held against each other. Our soldiers took boats and fought them face to face, and struck several men.

Your servant, being in one place with Yun Dusu and Kim Myeongwon and the rest, looked closely at the enemy's posture: what they are good at is only the lead shot and the use of the sword, and when our soldiers loose arrows they at once run off and keep far away. By this it seems that if we get disciplined soldiers and set them face to face with them, they would not be hard to master.

The coming out of the Ming troops is urgent by the hour. By what the Ming scouts have said, it seems the Ming commander has already entered our borders. From of old, when Ming officials came there was always, even in peaceful times, the rite of meeting them, giving them comfort and attending upon them; how much more now, when it is the chief general, a regional commander, who comes to our rescue, so that the dignity of the matter is grave. Let the meeting at the riverside at Uiju be done by Yun Geunsu (尹根壽); and only when a high minister on the middle road also, bearing the state's command, gives thanks for their having come from afar and then sets forth that the matter is urgent and that we look to them for rescue, will the dignity of the matter be rightly kept and the rescuing and driving back of the enemy come in time.

Your servant, having already received the command to attend upon them, cannot sit and wait for their coming. He has therefore taken counsel with Yun Dusu and means to hasten out and meet them on the middle road. When they meet, some little refreshment at least should be set out at the first interview; but wherever he comes the underlings of the government offices have all scattered, so that nothing can be made to take shape, and he is deeply distressed.

Moreover it is already some days since the enemy's soldiers drew near the walls, and the soldiers who block and cut off the shallow fords above and below on the water are far too few and weak, so that the pivot between safety and peril hangs upon no more than the drawing of a single breath. The Ming troops will yet be some days late in arriving, and so the adding of soldiers in this place is the more urgent and cannot be put off in the least. Your servant met a few scattered soldiers on the road and sent them straight in, and would call men together widely and have them go forward; but there is nobody on the road, and it is hard to do as he would. As for drawing out without exception the scattered soldiers of the several districts below Sukcheon and Anju and hastening to the rescue at this urgent hour — let the court send a separate high minister to deal with it urgently; and let letters making known our urgency be sent one after another to the Ming officials too, that we may not lose the hour and have cause to repent.