Urgent Report: Measures for the Army Grain, Easing the Ming Rations, and a Successor to Hong Jong-rok, Provisions Administrator, Now in Mourning馳。啓糧餉措置事宜及請唐兵糧料减省且定朝臣一人以管支給之任調度使洪宗祿在喪其代差送狀

The articles of instruction brought by Paek Yuham (白惟咸), Provisions Administrator, were at once made known to each district. On a former day the people of Hamjong (咸從) of their own wish gathered two hundred seom of white rice and added it to the army's supply, so your servant at once granted appointment patents with the names left blank (空名告身) to those who led in it, and had the district exempt the rest from miscellaneous labour and protect them wholly. Now Paek Yuham, going along the route, has admonished the well-to-do among the people to offer grain and so be exempted from menial service and corvée, and the amount comes to more than five hundred seom in all. The several other articles are also now being seen to.

Only, this year the coastal districts have here and there barely escaped a lean year, while the mountain districts have lost their farming altogether. There is nothing among the many levies and corvée needs that is not provided out of the people; and now, besides the loan grain and the land tax, the several other corvée dues are all pressed to be paid in rice and grain, so that your servant fears the people's strength will not bear it, which is cause for the utmost concern. He gives word of it first, and will watch the case and inquire and weigh it again.

On a former day the ration rice (料米) for the Ming troops was three doe a day to each man, and a mal of beans for each horse; the amount is far too great and can no longer be provided. Now the days are already short, so two doe a day for a man's food will not fall short; and the beans for the horses too may be halved, for five doe of raw beans, when boiled, make a mal. Reckoning the supply thus, there will be a surplus each day that can of itself be turned to other use. If, when they set out from Uiju, an interpreter versed in affairs were made to set this out in full to the Ming generals, a rule fixed beforehand, and word given along the one route so that it be carried out alike, it would be truly convenient and advantageous.

Reckoning up the whole amount of storehouse grain in each district of the province, your servant finds that even if it be provided with all our strength, there is a true worry of its being hard to supply once the troops reach sixty or seventy thousand. He has quietly noted that in the letter Brigade Commander Shen reported to the Ming court there was mention of issuing gomi (羔米) mixed with the large rice of Joseon. The copy is not full and it cannot be known what is meant; but the broad sense seems to be that, fearing our country's army grain is hard to keep up, they would supply the shortfall with rice and foodstuffs from the Central Plain. Let this matter too be inquired into plainly beforehand, that there be no worry of coming to grief at the moment of need.

When the Ming army comes out, the charge of the provisions — of reckoning the mouths and issuing to them — is also weighty. If it be not looked to closely, there will be no lack of the ill of double drawing in place after place. Let the court pick out with particular care an official of judgement and give him that charge. It is heard that Hong Jongnok (洪宗祿), Provisions Administrator, has lost his mother; his successor too should be picked out in haste and set to divide the route with Paek Yuham and see to it, and then there will be no ill of delay.

As for the floating bridges on the two rivers Cheongcheon (淸川) and Daejeong (大定), when the weather grows colder, the river freezes, the tide rises and the ice floes run, they cannot be moored and laid as before. This too cannot but be made known to the Ming generals; let the office concerned also discuss it closely and deal with it.