Report That Illness Keeps Me from Going South病未南下狀

Your servant's breath and blood have long been injured, and from the twenty-fourth day of last month he fell ill and was in grave case, and for more than twenty days knew nothing of the affairs of men. From yesterday his mind has cleared a little, but he still cannot lift his head, and whether he will live or die is hard to know.

As for the boat bridge, Kim Eokchu (金億秋), magistrate of Yeoju, and Yi Bin (李蘋), naval commander of Gyeonggi, were earlier appointed to build and lay it, and it is now already finished, and the main army has already crossed the Han River entire. Yi Seongjung (李誠中), Minister of Taxation, has gone down south with the main army upon the business of the army grain, so that the pressing of the carriage and the feeding and the like will surely have been kept up already without want. Other matters your servant cannot dispose of, his illness being such, and so he has sent the words of the charge handed down to him over to Yu Hong (俞泓) by official paper.

Your servant has received a heavy charge upon his body, and yet his perilous illness is such that there is no term to his recovery. The condition here and in the south-east grows urgent by the day, while he lies ill and dying and disposes of nothing; and this is not only an oppression in your servant's own private case but a grievous ruin to the affairs of the state as well. He dares to hope that the court will quickly appoint another man to take that charge and govern it, so that both public and private may be at ease.