Hastened Report on the Sunan Troops' Attack on Pyeongyang馳。啓順安軍進攻平壤狀

The circumstances of how the affair was set in motion that day your servant already reported with haste yesterday.

Early in the day, the brief record Yi Wonik (李元翼) sent hurrying from Busanwon (釜山院) said that about daybreak he had the troops advance on Gangbogwon (降福院) and provoked a fight with the vanguard, whereupon some thirty of the enemy came out first by the Botongmun gate (普通門) and the rest stood ranged along the top of the wall and spread out their banners. Presently a second notice arrived, saying that the enemy had been lured out at Gangbogwon and along the Jasan (慈山) road and the like, and a hundred-odd had come out; and that when one of the enemy, mounted, galloped out alone in front, our troops' scouts met the enemy and shot at them, and the fighting was now at its height.

At the hour of Sin a third notice came as well. The Japanese enemy were lured in among our troops' ambush and fought to the death, and of some fifty picked men of the Japanese vanguard the twenty-odd struck by arrows fell dead at once; and just as the rest turned and fled in collapse, one party of Japanese who had come up in pursuit charged straight into the great camp. The troops of the great camp scattered in alarm and fell back, and are now encamped west of Busanwon. It was the shape of a great victory, and yet it came to this at last; the grief is deep.

Our troops are now being mustered and counted, so how many were killed and wounded is not yet known. For the circumstances in between there will properly be a dispatch to be sent up from there. In the main, the enemy who charged and fought as the vanguard were nearly all shot back; it was on suddenly seeing the enemy who charged straight on in pursuit that, unable to withstand them, our men scattered in alarm and came out, and it did not come to a collapse and retreat. Your servant reports with haste, for now, the circumstances of mustering the troops and planning anew.