The Northern Enemy Gathered at the Capital, Our Ambush and Slaughter, and the Grain Run Out馳。啓北賊盡聚京城我軍設伏截殺緣由及糧餉乏絕狀

Of late the northern enemy have been coming up to the capital one after another from Hoeyang (淮陽) and Cheorwon (鐵原), so that your servant the other day sent papers to Yi Sieon (李時言) and to the auxiliary commander Kim (金𫏶), prefect of Cheorwon, bidding them lead the troops of Pyeonggang, Icheon, Cheorwon, and Anhyeop and bar and cut the enemy along the road and strike them as they saw an opening. He further agreed with Go Eonbaek (高彥伯), the Gyeonggi Defense Commander, that he should divide his troops and lie in ambush within the borders of Yangju and strike when the enemy came.

On the twenty-sixth day of this month Go Eonbaek told us, "The officer No Song (盧松) led troops and lay in ambush at Jeonnonghyeon (典農峴), and when a dozen odd mounted Japanese and twenty-some Japanese on foot came out and went about at their will, our troops sprang out upon them unlooked for and closed and fought and cut off five Japanese heads."

Again, on the twenty-ninth, Go Eonbaek told us, "Min Haeil (閔海一), the ambush commander, lay in ambush at Samiri on the seventeenth and awaited any change; and before daybreak the northern enemy went into the capital without number and kept flowing in until the hour of sa (巳時), whereupon the officers Sin Gi (愼朞) and Gu Chunggyeong (具忠卿) and the rest joined their strength and struck, and the number they shot dead is not known."

Again, in Go Eonbaek's report which arrived at the same time, Yu Chan (俞鑚), the ambush commander at Chukseok (祝石), told him, "On the twenty-eighth the enemy at last went up from Pocheon to the capital, encamping in place after place from Duheomcheon to Jangsuwon; and as thirty-odd Japanese came up behind them, the several commanders sprang out all at once and struck their hindmost and killed nearly all of them."

Again, according to what Yi Sieon, the Gangwon Defense Commander, told us: "On the twenty-second the enemy troops filled the road in the land of Geumhwa, some sixty li from the broad plain of Jangnim in the land of Cheorwon, and halted and encamped there some days. The Defense Commander led his troops and lay in ambush, and on the twenty-fifth, when the enemy's vanguard had crossed Galyeong (加乙嶺) and before their rear troops had come up, he sprang out and fell upon them, whereupon the enemy scattered in alarm and fled, and our troops rode the force of their victory and pursued and struck and cut off nine heads. Again, the officer Yi Hwan (李桓) joined his troops with the magistrate of Geumhwa and crushed them, and those he shot and hit were many, and he cut off two heads."

Reckoning the shape of things from these several reports, the northern enemy have already all gone into the capital, while here and there they halt about Pocheon and those parts and hang back and do not advance, so that they surely have some crafty design. Yet Jeokseong, Sangnyeong, Yeoncheon, and those parts lie quite empty with not one soldier to hold them, and the righteous troops and government troops of Gyeonggi have from the first made the attendance upon the Ming troops their excuse and have already all scattered and gone. Though we would gather them again and have them bar and hold Ganghwa, the grain has run out and it is hard to set a hand to it.

At the first, after the victory at Pyongyang, the enemy were all broken in spirit and more than half of those at the capital fled southward; and had we ridden this opening and beaten the drum and advanced and crushed them before the northern enemy came, the shape of things would have been very easy. Unhappily, when the Ming general was once thrown down at Byeokje he turned his army back all at once, and our troops sat and waited only upon the Ming troops and halted past the time, so that an opening hard to come by was lightly lost; which is most painful to the heart.

Now Go Eonbaek, with only several hundred starving and spent troops that remain, goes to and fro between Paju and Yangju and barely cuts down a stray enemy or two. The troops of Yi Bin (李薲), the frontier commander, number one thousand six hundred odd, but they are starving and worn and it is hard for them to advance and strike. The righteous troops besides have the name of having gathered troops but are truly of no use. Heo Uk (許頊), the Chungcheong Patrol Commissioner, was at first at Yangcheon; but as the enemy troops fill the country between Anseong and Jiksan, he was obliged to withdraw and hold that place and guard the grain road of the south. Only Gwon Yul (權慄), the Jeolla Patrol Commissioner, has halted his troops at the mountain fort of Paju, where the lie of the land is steep and he can hold himself after a fashion. The troops of Seon Geoi (宣居怡), the Jeolla army commander, and of Byeon Ijung (邊以中), the Provisioning Inspector (調度御史), now stay at Dokseong; and Jeong Geol (丁傑), naval commander of Chungcheong, leads the naval forces to and fro below Yongsan and means to draw and hold the enemy troops so that they cannot go down westward at their will.

In the main, if the food of the troops be not plentiful, then though there were a million troops they would be of no use. Now the ten thousand odd sacks of grain gathered with difficulty in several places are landed at the river mouth and set aside for the Ming troops' use, and we dare not use them otherwise. Besides these, the little grain of the several districts of Gyeonggi has all been appointed for Ming army grain, and they will not have it shared out to feed our troops; and in the Right Province there is not one place with any grain left. Though your servant spend every thought upon it, he truly knows not what to do.