Report That the Commander-in-Chief Sent Six Thousand Troops Back to Hold Pyongyang提督分送六千兵還守平壤狀

It is now already sixteen days since the Ming troops entered the borders of Gyeonggi and halted there. The pressing matters are hard to set down one by one. Moreover rain and snow have followed for some days and the roads have turned to mire, and on this pretext the Commander-in-Chief will not make the troops advance.

The day before yesterday your servant went to Dongpa to oversee the boat bridge on the Imjin River and urge on the carrying of grain, when someone passed word that ten thousand odd Ming troops had set out for Geumgyo. Your servant could not master his alarm and rode back through the night and asked the envoy-attendant and the rest the reason for it; and it was said that when the magistrate of Goksan reported in haste that the northern enemy were turning from Anbyeon toward Deogwon, Yi Deokhyeong (李德馨) passed it on and showed it to the skirmish general Shen (沈遊擊), and the skirmish general Shen told the Commander-in-Chief at once, whereupon the Commander-in-Chief was straightway thrown into commotion and said, "If the enemy should strike in at our backs our army will surely be in peril," and sent out six thousand troops and turned them back to Pyongyang to hold the walled town.

Even so he has as yet no intent to advance. When we asked where his intent lay he said only, "How should there be any reason for me to withdraw?" and this morning he picked out the southern troops (南兵) to follow up. Yet what will come of it in the end we do not know. He puts it off, saying he will set out when the roads dry; but rain fell again today and there is no appointed time for the roads to dry, which is most troubling.