Hastened Report on News of the Northern Province and on Asking That Arrow-Shaft Bamboo Be Brought from the South for Use in Battle馳。啓北道聲息且請取來南方箭竹以備戰用狀

Your servant wished to know the news of the northern province in detail, but his worry was that there was no one to scout. Since the mountain-valley roads are what monks know well, he gathered twenty-two monks, divided them into six parties, and sent them off in turn; and today the monk Yeongjun (靈俊), who had gone first, and several officers returned from the north and gave a rough account of the state of the northern province.

At the Hoengseong granary (橫城倉) Hwang Chan (黃燦) had gathered some hundred and fifty troops, and one called the Company Head (旅首) Kim Mujeok (金無敵) led the monks and went together as far as Baektohyeon (白土峴) in Hamheung, but the road was blocked and they returned without reaching it. Some ten of Jeongpyeong's (定平) titled officers, clerks, and drill instructors were gathered together among the mountain valleys, and on seeing the dispatch the monks carried they vied with one another in asking where the royal carriage was, and all shed tears. They said of themselves, "Jeongpyeong has no magistrate; if a new magistrate should arrive, many of the remaining people wish to gather together and strike the enemy."

They said further that of late the enemy went to Yeongheung (永興) in small boats and nearly twenty-odd were met at a pass by the village people and killed; and that a man of Gowon (高原) met three of the enemy and shot two of them dead, but one enemy got free and fled, called his fellows, and came and killed some seventy of the village people. On that account the people are all afraid and hide their bows and arrows deep and dare not shoot.

The enemy make the village people render one mal of white rice per house, or one mal five seung if it is field rice, and to those who render it they grant an enemy tally to wear. People who do not wear one are killed at once on meeting the enemy, so there are people everywhere going about wearing the enemy's tally. The Surveillance Commissioner Yu Yeongnip (柳永立) is hidden on Baegunsan in Hamheung, and his son-in-law and the Administrator, together with their households, lay hidden scattered in various places; but our own people secretly led the enemy soldiers to surround them, so that they have all been seized and are shut up in a granary.

The enemy at Hamheung are some two hundred. Among them is one who put eight hawks in cages, loaded them in succession on horses, went to Cheollyeong (鐵嶺), and came back; and the enemy who had stayed behind, on seeing him and hearing his words, cried out and wept together. When the village people who had come to render rice asked the reason, the enemy did not answer and only said, "Of late the collars of our swords have rusted and grown rough; this is an unlucky omen. We fear we shall die." They also say that at the places of encampment within the walls they have all made earthen huts and palisades. This the monks did not see in person; it is what they heard from the village people.

As for how far the enemy soldiers have come, there is no one who reports it, so some say they have already reached Iseong (利城) and Dancheon (端川), and some say they have already entered the northern province and that Samsu (三水) and Gapsan (甲山) too have all fallen to the enemy; it is roughly thus. The details can only be known on awaiting the scouts of the later parties, but Patrol Commissioner Song Eonsin (宋言愼) will surely have sent up a dispatch already.

Your servant quietly considers that the enemy's strength, as if reaching to Heaven, grows fiercer by the day, and that they ought properly to be taken by stratagem. If we do not cease from fighting recklessly with a rabble, defeat is certain. Those who are commanders today are for the most part mean in ability and have no plan at all. The enemy soldiers are now already deep in sloth and our people pass in and out without hindrance, so the openings to be seized are not one or two. If a plan of operations were truly laid even for a moment, their movements found out, and inside and outside made to answer one another as a thunderclap leaves no leisure to cover the ears, then within a single night the enemy killed would certainly be many. After breaking them once, if we strike by surprise here and there, it will have the shape of splitting bamboo and they will come apart of themselves before the blade.

Those who are commanders today look only at what is before their eyes and their thought does not reach the distant future at all. As for the enemy of the northern province, with no one to rebuke and bar them it is already more than a couple of months, so that their den is gradually taking shape and those who attach themselves to them grow more numerous by the day; it is to be feared that if a plan is not laid early now there will be the trouble of its being hard to deal with.

Your servant hears, further, that to Kim Sungeol (金順乞), Kim Semu (金世武), Gang Geukseong (姜克成), and the others who the other day brought word from the northern province of the enemy's doings, your servant at once sent blank commissions (告身) to be passed on to them, so as to urge on their further efforts; and he now hears that Hwang Chan (黃璨) said, "It is wrong that they came and reported of their own accord without informing me and gained office as a reward," and had them all flogged. On this account Sungeol and the others have drawn back and do not come out, and those who meant to come have stopped as well. Hwang Chan's handling of the matter is awry in this way, and your servant cannot overcome how strange and lamentable it is.

Your servant has a further concern and cannot but venture to report it. Looking at this state of things, even should the enemy be pacified, it can hardly be done within a month or two; and everywhere, far and near, the bows and arrows are all gone. Here, what remains along the riverside has been gathered in and we are not yet out of them, but there is the worry that the supply will be hard to keep up. When it comes to places such as Hwanghae, Gangwon, and Hamgyeong Provinces, the soldiers and the people alike grasp nothing but empty fists; what can they do?

When your servant first reached this place he heard there was arrow-shaft bamboo at Yeongbyeon (寧邊), but it had been scattered and lost and only some three hundred bundles remained, so he had the Pyeongsa Yi Sangcheol (李尙哲) press on the making of long arrows and short arrows. He also met Jeolla Province Commissioner Jeong Cheol (鄭澈) on the road and discussed it with him, arranging that arrow-shaft bamboo be shipped off as soon as he reached the border. Fearing even so that it might be late, your servant also sent a dispatch to Kim Sinwon (金信元) to put out two or three ships of the three districts and go to the places among the sea islands of Chungcheong Province where arrow-shaft bamboo grows, cut it, and come back fully loaded.

This is an urgent and pressing matter, and the preparing of it cannot but be hurried. If the court were to send one man separately to fetch it on the spot and distribute it to the several districts, and to have tens of thousands of bundles made in quantity and scattered to each province for use in barring the enemy, it would be the handier and more advantageous still.