Urgent Report That Chungcheong and Jeolla Are in Peril, Asking for Measures馳。啓兩湖事勢危迫參酌處置狀

The state of the rations of the Ming generals and troops in this place your servant has in the main already reported in haste. Now, according to what the Minister of Taxation Yi Seongjung (李誠中) and the Deputy Minister of Taxation Bak Chunggan (朴忠侃) report, the rice and beans come to nearly forty thousand sacks. The army grain for the Ming troops may hold out after a fashion, and the grass for the horses is now being carried up one load after another.

From the first, the Commander-in-Chief's withdrawing of the army was not for want of rations. It was only that, having gone forward lightly at Byeokje and set his foot wrong, he rolled this way and that until it came to this, and lost his opening while sitting still; which is truly to be lamented.

Your servant has a further care. Chungcheong and Jeolla have happily not suffered the whole ravage of war and have been somewhat better off than the other provinces. Yet from last year every levy and every corvee has come out of them; and though the troops of Yi Gwang (李洸) and Choe Won (崔遠) crumbled and scattered on the way and all their army grain and stores were lost, the pressing of the carrying does not cease. Besides this the righteous troops and the government troops have worked abuses, taking at their will and stripping them as one pares flesh, so that in things public and private there is no end to it. The strength of the people is spent and what was laid up is gone as if washed away, so that they are worse off even than the places that suffered the ravage of war.

It is passed on and heard that in Hwanggan, Yeongdong, Cheongju, and those parts of Chungcheong Province there is no smoke of men on four sides, and only the sound of the wind and the sound of the water are heard. And the enemy above Chungju kill and plunder worse than in the autumn and winter past.

In the main, because the great army is in the west, the enemy do not turn straight that way; but should they, holding the capital in force, set a hand to the country south of the Han River again and, riding that gap, strike into the borders of Chungcheong and Jeolla, with what shall we then bar them? And even should they abandon the walls and go back, it is in the nature of things that the enemy, their rations spent, should come out in disorder and plunder, meaning to gather the grain left in the districts for their road rations.

Now the shape of things in the south is most perilous. Yet the army grain for the entertaining of the Ming troops is all near Jiksan, and besides that, much of the grain and fodder left along the road in the carrying has already been taken by the enemy.

Nor is this all. The districts of Gyeonggi, on first hearing that the Ming troops were coming, held only the business of entertaining them urgent and forgot the business of barring the enemy altogether. The magistrates of the several districts of the Right Province — Gwacheon, Pocheon, Incheon, Bupyeong, Namyang, and Tongjin — have all been picked out for other business, and abandoning the holding of their own districts they lead away all the men of their whole borders and run about here and there. Even those gathered as righteous troops, saying that they are entertaining the Ming troops, carry rations and bear fodder, so that the troops are scattered and they are left alone and set their minds no more upon striking the enemy.

Your servant is deeply troubled by this. He has with haste sent papers to Seong Yeong (成泳), the Gyeonggi Left Patrol Commissioner, to muster the troops of the Left Province, and has made it known to the righteous troops besides that they should join their strength and bar the passes. Yet in the going to and fro and the putting off a month has already passed.

Since the seventeenth of last month the enemy's strength south of the Han River has grown fiercer still, and about Pocheon, Geumcheon, Gwacheon, and Suwon there is no place unburned and the people are startled and scattered. Though Seon Geoi (宣居怡), the Jeolla army commander, holds Dokseong, he barely keeps his own body safe, and besides him there are no troops to meet and cut them off any more. Moreover the army grain is wanting, and even the little grain of the districts of Gyeonggi has been gathered to the bottom with nothing left. And though we would pick out troops and bar the enemy, of what use on a field of battle are people starved and lean and worn, whose breath may fail by morning or evening?

Your servant's first intent had long been troubled over this. Therefore he meant that the rations of the Ming troops should be only the grain carried by the southern sea road with several myriad odd sacks of Ming rations added to it, and that the grain of Gangwon Province and Gyeonggi should not yet all be gathered but be made the military stores of our own country. This design was not carried out, and now that it has come to a pass where nothing can be done he is simply at a loss.

Seong Yeong, the Gyeonggi Left Governor, is not equal to it in talent and capacity and is not long in discernment and thought, and is not enough to be charged with business at an hour of peril. Of late his dealings have not escaped being slack, so that the business of the Left Province is the more gravely to be feared. Yet looking about, one is hard put to find a man to take his place who would likewise be enough to accomplish the business; and for this reason your servant does not yet dare to ask that he be replaced. Let the court weigh it again and dispose of it.

As for the granary grain of Asan and those parts in Chungcheong Province, Heo Uk (許頊), the Patrol Commissioner of that province, reported in haste, "The inspector Gang Cheom (姜籤) has gathered it to the bottom and carried it away, so that there is nothing left any more; which is most pitiable."

In your servant's thought, the army grain of this place is in the main already provided. The grain of Chungcheong and Jeolla cannot but be carried up, yet it would seem well to leave some of it besides and keep it against needs that are not looked for. If Chungcheong and Jeolla should crumble and the troops and the people scatter so that they can be gathered no more, and the enemy troops ride the gap and fall upon a place without defense, where then would the root of the state be entrusted? Let these circumstances be weighed and disposed of in full by the office concerned once more.