Secret Plans for Striking the Enemy, Point by Point條陳討賊機務狀

The case today grows more perilous and pressing by the day, while we sit with folded hands and have no plan, and look only for the Ming army to come and rescue us. Should the Ming army not arrive in time and the enemy's strength grow fierce, with what shall we then hold them off? Still more, the weather has already turned cold and the provisions are near their end, and the people who have fled on every side into the mountain valleys to hide are slaughtered day by day until scarcely any are left; which is truly sad and grievous.

As your servant quietly sees it, the Japanese do not truly hold a strength that cannot be withstood. It is only that our country lacks men fit to be generals and that the troops are afraid, so that facing the ranks they cannot fight with all their strength but flee first at the mere sight of the enemy's spirit, and so it has come to this. Your servant humbly sets down below, point by point, what in his poor view should be done.

One. Should the enemy at Pyongyang join their troops and come down westward, it is a true cause for concern.

Yet Yi Il (李鎰) is now at the east of Pyongyang with troops under him, the troops of three districts are at the west of Pyongyang, Kim Eokchu (金億秋) and others are to the southwest with the naval force, and the troops of Sunan (順安) are again to the north. An agreement should be fixed beforehand, so that, taking the opening while the enemy troops come down westward, the troops of the three faces join and strike at their lair, and swift troops be sent out in divisions to bite at and strike their rear, that the enemy may be held and entangled and not dare come straight down as they please. Let the Sunan troops pick out the choice and swift, break the enemy from the flank and fall on them by night; and if many feint troops be set out besides, advancing and withdrawing, massing and scattering, coming out now on the left and now on the right, the enemy can be beaten. Do otherwise — hear that the enemy are coming westward and scatter the troops and flee for cover, as on a former day — and the great business goes amiss.

The enemy troops have held fast at Pyongyang for something over two months. Last month it was heard that those within the walls were very few and that there was an opening worth seizing. Again, the one fortress of Pyongyang leans on the hills to the northwest, and since our troops always came and went by the fields of Busan (釜山) and Gambok (感福), the enemy too made ready only on the northwest. Had we then gone in secretly by night with the naval force into the midst of the Daedong River, laden with fire arrows and weapons in quantity, and struck where they did not look for it, that too would have been a wondrous stroke; but to our regret our troops hesitated and looked about them, and lost the chance where they sat.

Now, though the boats have been got ready late, the enemy have already caught wind of it; and again, in keeping the Ming general's agreement we hold our troops back and do not advance. In the use of troops it is better to be rough and quick than deft and slow. Being slow, the other side can lay its plans while our spirit has already declined, and so merit is hard to win. Yet if this intent be made known to the several generals, that they may watch for an opening to advance and take them, something may still be gathered in, though at evening.

One. In the business of war nothing matters so much as first making the weapons keen.

Measuring the long and the short of it as our country fights the Japanese: the skills the Japanese are good at are three — the iron shot, the use of the sword, and charging straight in; the skill our country is good at is one — the bow and arrow alone. Yet the bow and arrow can be used only within some tens of paces, while the iron shot, at several hundred paces, pierces without fail wherever it strikes; truly they are no match for one another. And when it comes to closing with short weapons, our troops hold out still less and are busy breaking and fleeing; how then should they win?

Of late the Ming generals, coming and going and seeing that our troops have no weapons at all, have never failed to think it strange and sigh over it, and have earnestly told us to furnish weapons in haste. Yet our troops know no plan to bring forth and wait for the enemy empty-handed; which is bitterly disheartening.

Your servant has quietly examined the design of the fire cart (火車), and it is most convenient and advantageous, truly a wondrous instrument for gaining victory; yet since the war broke out it has not been used even once, which is truly a matter of resentment and regret. Your servant has found twenty-two of them at Anju (安州) and Yeongbyeon (寧邊), and has altered them, adding a little and taking away a little where the design was not convenient. On each cart fifteen seungja gun barrels (勝字銃筒) are loaded.

If a hundred or more were made after this pattern, the ranks closed on all four sides with bowmen set among them, and the whole advanced slowly in formation, the elevation and the left and right all sighted alike on the quarter the enemy troops face, and all fired at once, it is like the driving of wind and rain. Though the enemy troops be ten million they could not dare to meet the front of it; and the bowmen too, leaning on the carts, cover their bodies and avoid the iron shot, which is far better than a shield.

Let the fire carts stored at Uiju (義州) and those parts, your servant begs, be brought out in haste and all made over and mended after the new Anju pattern. Should the seungja gun barrels fall short, let the uja (宇字) and juja (宙字) barrels serve in their place by turns; and let officers take charge of them and send them to the camp to be used in the fighting.

One. The enemy troops have been encamped and holding fast at the capital for long already, so that the hearts of the people have grown used to it and think it secure; more than half have gone in to live there and they seem almost to have forgotten one another, which is bitterly disheartening.

As your servant quietly considers it, the posture for recovering Gyeonggi should come from three faces. In general, let the troops of the districts of Yangju (楊州), Jeokseong (積城), Pocheon (抱川), Yeongpyeong (永平), Gapyeong (加平), Yanggeun (楊根) and the rest be given one general to command, and the plan of action taught him, to screen the east of the capital. Let the troops of the districts of Ganghwa (江華), Gyodong (喬桐), Gyoha (交河), Goyang (高陽) and the rest be given yet another general to command, to take the enemy who scatter out to the west of the capital. Let the troops of the districts of Gwangju (廣州), Gwacheon (果川), Geumcheon (衿川), Suwon (水原), Yangcheon (陽川), Yongin (龍仁), Anseong (安城) and the rest be given yet another general to command, to block the south and strike the enemy going down southward.

Only then will the troops of Gangwon join their strength with the troops of Yangju and the other districts, the troops of Chungcheong join their strength with the troops south of Gwangju, and the troops of Ganghwa and Gyodong join with the troops of Jeolla Province and the righteous armies. If they give word to one another of every move and halt, so that their strength is continuous and their agreements pass between them, then advancing they can sweep away the brigands at the capital and withdrawing they can keep off the plundering. The army's strength will be doubled of itself, and there will be no worry of their being scattered, isolated and weakened.

Your servant hears of late from those who come and go that Go Eonbaek (高彥伯), Magistrate of Yangju, has no little courage and is able in his charge. This man is fit to take one face, and the rest are for the court to choose.

Again, in the several provinces there are already Patrol Commissioners, and governors besides, and recruiting officers (召募官) besides, so that the word of command is not one, men do not know whose lead to take, the several districts are worn out with entertaining them, and the hearts of the people turn away the more. Among them some gather many of the province's swift troops, settle deep in the mountain valleys, guard their own persons and households and work ills on the districts; and when the enemy come they flee first at the mere sight of their spirit, scatter and dismiss their soldiers, and after scattering them call and gather them yet again. For this reason, it is said, even those who formerly banded together in the villages and took the enemy have all scattered.

This is the great trouble of today. Your servant begs only that the court charge them again and again and show reward and punishment plainly, so that there be chastisement. And since all appointing lies in striving to get the right man, only when the word of command issues from one will the thing be nearly possible. In such a place as Hwanghae Province too there are governors, Patrol Commissioners, Pacification Commissioners (招討使) and recruiting officers; here likewise let what is not urgent be reduced. Yi Taehyeong (李泰亨), Magistrate of Haeju, abandoned the walls, lost his troops and drifts about on the sea, yet punishment does not reach his person; and your servant fears that the hearts of the people are angered and resentful, and that military discipline cannot be kept strict.