Report on Reckoning and Providing the Army Grain料理軍餉狀

On the nineteenth of last month the Right Deputy Royal Secretary wrote out and sent down the orders, "Though Commander-in-Chief Li (李提督) has already withdrawn and halted, several myriad gunners of the south are now coming out; so admonish the people with this intent and let their hearts be calmed, and strive besides to shift and provide army grain and fodder, and treat the Ming troops well, and let nothing fall short"; and on the twenty-fourth the Right Deputy Royal Secretary wrote out and sent down the orders, "Now, looking at the letters of Yi Deokhyeong (李德馨) and the rest, it is said that Commander-in-Chief Li now means to advance; so do you provide the army grain and the horse fodder of the road ahead with all your intent and await them, letting nothing fall short." Both these letters of orders your servant received together at Dongpa.

At the first, when the Ming troops beat the drum and advanced with the force of splitting bamboo, the people far and near all said that the capital would be recovered within a few days, and those who were left undead came back and gathered by degrees. But unlooked for, once the great army withdrew, the hearts of men crumbled and were startled and afraid, and they have no firm purpose any more. Your servant too stays at Dongpa for this reason and admonishes the people, and with a little unhulled grain feeds the starving people a little at a time; but the heart labors and the business is thwarted, and every design is in ruin.

The piteous sight before our eyes is this. The starving people, leading their old and their little, hear that your servant is here and hope that they may live, and those who gather day by day are, at a rough reckoning, from several hundred to several thousand, while there is no grain with which to relieve them. Moreover of late the wind and rain have risen greatly, and those who die piled one upon another are eight or nine a day; and though we beat our breasts and burn with anxiety, nothing can be done. The barley seed for the spring tillage has not yet been put into the ground, and look where we will on four sides there is no place with grain laid up, so that like carp caught in a dried-up wheel rut (涸轍之鮒) they will all rot away within a few days and none be left; which is most pressing.

The army grain for the entertaining of the Ming troops, setting aside what has already been given out, is now, of what remains, nineteen thousand nine hundred and forty-three sacks of rice and seven thousand one hundred and thirteen of beans. Of rice there is plenty after a fashion, but of beans there is a great want. Yet if the great army should advance and arrive at once it would still be possible to hold out, whereas now the days have already been long drawn out and the troops that sit and eat in this place are many besides. The troops led by Yi Bin (李薲), the frontier commander, and the troops of Go Eonbaek (高彥伯) and Jo Hoik (曺好益) all take their food here, and now the troops of Jeong Hihyeon (鄭希玄) and Bak Myeonghyeon (朴名賢) have reached Yeoncheon and likewise report that they have run out. Would your servant have them withdraw, the enemy at the capital are still strong; would he have them stay as they are, there is no way to provide army grain; so far has the difficulty of the business come.

Your servant's first intent was to add several myriad odd sacks of Ming army grain to the grain carried by boat from Chungcheong and Jeolla Provinces and so keep the Ming troops supplied. The grain gathered piecemeal in Gyeonggi and Gangwon Province does not fill even one day's use of the Ming troops, and if it were all scraped up with nothing left there would be nowhere for the troops' rations and the people's food to come from; so he meant to leave a little and keep it against the needs of this place. But unlooked for, as the Ming troops stay long, the Ministry of Taxation and the officers who carry the army grain, pressed by the want before their eyes, have brought away nearly all that was stored in the several districts of Gyeonggi and all that was stored in Cheorwon, Anhyeop, Icheon, and the other districts of Gangwon Province, so that there is no grain left any more.

Now the Ming troops cannot readily advance and our troops are all starving and worn and do not make an army. The people of Yangju, Goyang, Gyoha, and the other districts hereabouts have fought the enemy over into another year and are nearly all of them swift, and of late those whom Go Eonbaek leads and who take the enemy are all of these troops. If ten thousand odd sacks of grain could be got, several thousand picked men could be gathered at once and there would surely be fruit in striking the enemy; but there is no design at all for providing army grain, and what then shall we do?

It is passed on and heard that Superintendent Song (宋經略) has already reached Uiju and those parts, but we do not know for certain when the day of sending out the troops will be. In the main, only after three or four myriad sacks of Ming army grain have come to this place will there be no fear of ruin.