Requesting That the Ming Grain Be Shipped with Haste請急運唐糧狀

It is now already a fortnight since the Ming troops entered the borders of Gyeonggi. For supplying the grain there is no device, for all the wits spent upon it. What has been carried by boat to Huseogang (後西江), first and last, is five thousand odd sacks; and to the two thousand odd sacks of rice and beans stacked at Geumgyo Station in Hwanghae Province more was brought and added from Haeju, Yeonan, Ubong, Tosan, and the other districts, yet it is still not enough. The rice and beans at Dongpa, four thousand odd sacks in all, we now plan to float down to Huseogang again and add to the store.

The Commander-in-Chief meant at first to make the troops advance today, but rain fell unlooked for over some days and the roads turned to mire, so that the horses sink in to the belly and the shape of things makes it hard to make the troops advance. Thus we halt on and on, and the weather has not yet cleared briskly, so that whether what follows will be slow or quick is hard to reckon beforehand as well. Besides this the people of Gaeseong are scattered and have not yet come back and gathered, so that every business is at a loss.

Yu Hong (俞泓), the Inspector of the Three Provinces, came because the Ming general had issued a placard, and then, upon the words spoken by Yu Mongin (柳夢寅), a Jipyeong (持平) of the Censorate, he was already relieved of the office of Inspector and set out at once for Ganghwa. Your servant is foolish and dull by nature, and this was not his province from the first, so that in such matters as carrying grain and raising troops he knows neither head nor tail; and meeting it all of a sudden he knows not what to do. Though he has sent papers to the Governors of Jeolla and Chungcheong urging on the grain of the south, far water does not put out a near fire; how can it be got up in time?

Moreover, from Gyeonggi to the borders of Gangwon, after the ravages of war there is within several hundred li no smoke of a dwelling any more. There is not one soldier or commoner who is not starving and spent, and those who bore grain on back and head die one after another along the road. The troops of Yi Bin (李薲), the Provincial Military Commander of Pyeongan, are at Paju, where the grain has long since been cut off, so that the dead are very many and there is no way to shift any more to them; this is the more painful and grievous.

The men who went to scout the Japanese enemy at the capital all say that there is as yet no sign of their going out. In the urgent report of the magistrate of Goksan yesterday, it is said that the enemy general at Anbyeon has taken up the two princes and gone into Deogwon. The enemy's designs are cruel and crafty and hard to reckon; may it not be that they are holding their den fast and waiting for the troops that come behind? Every matter gives cause for care, so let the court seek out good measures with particular diligence. Let the carrying of the Ming grain be seen to as urgently as a flying spark, and let the holding of the northern provinces be charged in full as well, so that we may await any change and ward off trouble from an unlooked-for quarter.