Urgent Report: Why Assistant Commander Zhou Entered the Enemy Camp, and More Japanese in Gyeongsang馳。啓周參將往入賊陣緣由及慶尙道倭賊添來狀

Yesterday your servant went to Paju and settled terms with Gwon Yul (權慄) on matters of arms. Toward nightfall Zhu Chaoyuan (朱朝元), bearing the banner and tablet (旗牌) of Assistant Commander Zhou Hongmo (周弘謨), arrived leading three hundred and more men with drums and pipes before him. Your servant had the aides Yu Hiseo (柳熙緒) and Yi Gwi (李貴) and the rest pay their respects and ask besides where they were going, and they said: 「We go to the capital to receive and bring back the princes and the several captive ministers.」

Presently he sent out the courier Song Huhan (宋後漢) to say: 「The banner and tablet have come here; the ministers of your country must come in and knock their heads and perform the ceremony.」 Your servant answered: 「To knock our heads before the banner and tablet is not a thing we dare refuse. But this is a banner and tablet that goes to the camp of the Japanese; how should we knock our heads before it first? Besides, the Japanese are a foe with whom we cannot live under one heaven, and there is not one chance in ten thousand that our country would allow peace; the less, then, can we knock our heads and receive the order.」

The Assistant Commander was greatly angered and did not cease to press us; but as your servant would not go in at the last, he thereupon brought out and showed the Military Commissioner's placard (牌文) as well. In one article of it was written: 「That the country of Joseon cannot live under one heaven with the Japanese is indeed so. But now that they have already begged to offer tribute and asked to surrender, wait for the time being for this office's reply. Whoever opens a breach first shall be cut down.」 Your servants, unable to master their pain and bitterness, said: 「Looking at this placard, it would have our troops not kill the Japanese; how should there be such a reason? The less can we receive the order」; and after arguing and pressing again and again they at last withdrew without knocking their heads.

They also submitted a letter to the Commander-in-Chief, but he always soothed them with such words as 「Military secrets are hard to let leak out; do not fret」, and besides put it off upon the Military Commissioner; and their pain and urgency cannot be set out in words.

On the whole, it is now already six or seven days since Brigade Commander Shen (沈遊擊) went into the enemy camp and did not return. The business is most preposterous, and yet of all their measures nothing at all is told to our men, so that for this reason the particulars of it between them cannot be learned. The enemy's designs are hard to fathom and the months and days are only drawn out while the ruin grows worse by the day; so that although what the Commander-in-Chief said to your servants was as above, it too is hard to believe.

Just now the report sealed and sent up on the third day of the fourth month by Han Hyosun (韓孝純), Left Governor of Gyeongsang, says: 「Of late the enemy's posture at Dongnae and Busan is greatly different from before. Formerly the ships coming and going amounted at most to thirty or forty, but now their number cannot be known, and they have come and put in twice over; the enemy's inward mind is very hard to fathom.」

The word that more enemy soldiers are coming cannot be known for hollow or solid; but it is just the season when the winds are favorable, and the cruel enemy work all manner of designs, so how should there not be such a fear? It would be fitting to strike in haste in good time and take away their spirit; but the Ming generals' handling comes out now this way, now that, between peace and war, and the chance has been let slip several times, which is the more painful.

Of late your servant has divided and sent out nimble troops and is just now planning against the enemy at Yongsan and such places, and has besides sent troops separately south of the Han River, where there has been a fair deal of cutting down. But as for Yongsan, since Brigade Commander Shen is just now in that place, the several commanders do not dare lay hands on it lightly. Now, seeing the matter of the placard, the pain and bitterness are the deeper.