Report on Reckoning Up and Preparing the Army Grain料理軍糧狀

On the nineteenth day of this month your servant humbly received at Anju (安州) the royal directive, sealed with the official seal by the Left Royal Secretary.

The granary grain of the districts everywhere is only what was left after utter ruin, and now a great army suddenly comes out; though every plan is put forward for procuring it, there is no way. Earlier, in supplying five thousand troops and horses we tore down the east to patch the west and moved what was there to supply here, and barely brought it into shape; truly we had already spent our heart and thought and left no strength in reserve. That the Ming troops, having withdrawn, should levy troops and horses again and come out is quite beyond expectation, and we do not know what to do.

The amounts of grain remaining along the one road were in the main set forth in brief in yesterday's dispatch. What is left over from use at Jeongju and is there now is something over three hundred seok of field rice from Guseong and five hundred seok of land-tax rice from the Asanchang granary; reckoned throughout in level seok, this comes to something over one thousand five hundred seok together, which is five days' provisions for ten thousand troops. At Anju there are now seven hundred seok of land-tax rice from the Asanchang granary, two hundred seok left over from use among the rice moved in from other districts, and something over a thousand seok of field rice and hulled rice from Samhwa and Yonggang together. It has long been loaded in the ships; midway they were made to deliver it round to Gwangnyang (廣梁), and after the Ming troops withdrew they were made to move it again and deliver it to Anju, so it has not yet come and is now being pressed for. If it arrives safely, what is stored here will come to something over two thousand seok, enough to supply ten days and more amply even should ten thousand troops come out. What is stored besides at Gasan, Seoncheon, Yongcheon, and Cheolsan is barely enough to supply one day's provisions for three or four thousand men, and there is no way to prepare more. Reckoning by this, if the troops who come out hereafter are numerous enough to reach ten thousand, there is truly no plan for keeping them supplied.

Fodder is given at one mal per horse, so the outlay is tenfold that of men's provisions, and there is the less way to prepare it. Even if we would fill it out with mixed stuffs such as sorghum, millet, and panic grass, the Ming men as a rule do not like to receive them, and mixed grains too are hard to keep up, which is the more vexing. There are now one thousand seok of fodder beans at Anju, one thousand at Jeongju, and a thousand at Seoncheon as well. At Uiju what is stored in the home granary and in the Sogot and Jeongwon granaries is the most ample of any district, coming to sixteen or seventeen thousand seok. Besides this, the amounts in the neighboring districts are some ten thousand seok each at Guseong and Yonggang, and six or seven thousand each at Samhwa and Gangseo. If they can be fetched and used in time, the supply can be kept up.

Yet Guseong, though a day's road from Jeongju, lies by steep and distant mountain roads. Of late the amount the several districts have scattered to ship in has already passed a thousand seok of rice and beans together, and men's strength is already spent; so though we would now ship it in one lot after another, it is to be feared this will hardly go as we wish. Only Samhwa and Yonggang have a sea route open and could ship in amply, but the sea's tides and winds are uneven in their favor and contrariness so that a term is hard to fix, which is deeply worrying.

Further, army grain ought properly to use two seung per man, but at the outset we were excessively liberal and gave three seung a day. It is reported at second hand that the Ming troops cannot eat it all and often barter the leftover rice for other goods; so this too ought properly to be reported as it stands and made a way of reducing the ration and keeping the supply up. Your servant, meeting this great matter, is poor in plans and worn in heart, and fearing that army grain and military stores will fall short he worries night and day. Let the office concerned separately devise a plan for producing wealth and making food ample, and have it carried out with urgency.