The Ming Army Passing Anju, and Readying Oxen and Wine to Feast Them天兵過安州事及預備牛酒犒餉。天兵狀

The Ming troops set out from Gasan (嘉山) at dawn on the fifteenth of this month and reached Anju (安州), but without entering the walls went straight on along the Cheongcheon River toward Sukcheon (肅川). As to furnishing provisions along this one road, your servant fears that south of Anju the ruin is yet more severe and that nothing can be made to take shape. It happened that Sin Deogyong (愼德容), a royal messenger, had levied eight hundred and twenty sacks of grain from Jeungsan (甑山) and Hamjong (咸從), and Hong Segong (洪世恭), the provisioning commissioner, five hundred and sixty-nine sacks from Huicheon, Unsan, Bakcheon, Yeongbyeon, Gaecheon and those parts, and all of it reached Anju. After the Ming troops had passed, every labourer within the district and all the old and weak soldiers not used in battle were sent out, and bearing it on back and head they followed after as far as Sukcheon in good season and distributed the army grain. What is now being carried to Sunan (順安) is some three hundred and forty sacks, which will amply furnish some days' provisions, and what falls short will be sent on one load after another.

Three hundred sacks of rice from the Asan granary have been shifted onto the Jeungsan boats and sent round to Gwangnyang (廣梁) in Samhwa (三和), and some eight hundred sacks of rice and beans from Yonggang (龍岡), Samhwa and other districts have likewise been sent round to Gwangnyang. Should the Ming troops happily retake Pyeongyang and cross the river in pursuit, your servant means to furnish them from this grain.

Only, thinking of it, since the Ming troops came out our business and our strength have been spent, and not once yet has the rite of feasting the troops been performed, which is deeply amiss to the state's good name. If they accomplish a great work, sweep away the cruel enemy and return, the comforting of them with a feast and the giving of rewards ought to be done amply, in answer to their toil. Your servant, taking counsel with the provisioning commissioner and others, means to do it at four places: Pyeongyang, Anju, Jeongju and Uiju. Reckoning roughly the sundry goods needed, there would be at each place some thousand jars of wine and a score or so of oxen, with pigs, sheep, fowl and dogs provided as they can be got. Dispatches have been sent out appointing the nearby districts jointly to each place to make ready beforehand, and appointing moreover an officer in charge among them to take it up and see to it.

This matter touches the state's dignity gravely, and the Ming troops have besides already saved and kept alive the lives of a million of our country's people, so that we cannot but render in full what is owed. Though there be some small burden in it, there is no leisure to look to that. Moreover a thousand odd jars of wine come to no more than thirty sacks of rice, so that reckoned by this, what each of the districts jointly appointed must put out to one place is barely five or six sacks, and they can amply provide it. Only oxen are rather scarce and dear in this province, and your servant fears they may be hard to provide; therefore, for those among the people who of their own wish provide and present them, he has had it ordered that the corvée laid upon their household be remitted for a fixed number of years, or that some other reward be weighed out to them. Gathered thus, the rite can be accomplished.

Only, Uiju being the place where the royal carriage stays, it seems its rite ought to be grander than the other districts'. Let the offices concerned also make ready beforehand the gifts to be given after the feast to the Ming generals and those below them, that there be no fear of straits when the hour comes.