Urgent Report: Staying in This Province until the Supreme Commander Arrives馳。啓賊勢方急姑留本道待都元帥來到後上去狀

Having received the summons with reverence, I was on my way up when, reaching Gunwi, I received an urgent dispatch from Han Hyosun (韓孝純), Left Governor of this province, saying that the Japanese meant to invade Ulsan and Gyeongju. Though there was no telling whether the report was true or hollow, the situation was worrying, and I at once wrote a statement and sent it hurrying to Regional Commander Liu, asking him to move his troops and stay near Gyeongju to lend support.

That same day Han Hyosun sent another urgent dispatch: the enemy's strength was at its height; the Japanese filled the hills and fields about Ulsan, Eonyang, Yangsan, and such places and had spread camps everywhere; and the danger of their stabbing and shoving their way up was upon us from morning to night, so that the case was very urgent. The Supreme Commander, the Frontier Commander (巡邊使), and the generals under them were all keeping their troops in the Right Province and on the borders of Honam, and they should be directed with all haste to hurry here day and night and relieve this desperate strait.

Since I have received the summons I ought to go up at once, but just now the enemy's incursion within the province is such as this, and of the Supreme Commander and the generals under him there is not one left in the province. Only Go Eonbaek (高彥伯), the Left Army Commander, is at Gyeongju, and he leads no more than a few hundred starving and wasted soldiers, so there is no hope of his holding back an enemy at the height of his fury, and Gyeongju's peril hangs upon a morning or an evening. The magistrates of the districts of the upper province have all gone out on the business of manning the relay posts and have not come back; the people are starving, and epidemic has spread so widely that almost all the able-bodied men are dead and those left barely keep their breath. Even if I would call up troops and make a plan to relieve the place, there is no way to do it.

Han Hyosun hopes I will stay a little and direct the several generals, and this truly comes of his anguish and desperation. I informed the Supreme Commander at once and had him dispose of the matter on the spot. But Jeolla is very far from here and the enemy troops are already within some tens of li of Gyeongju, so that even if relief came it would not arrive in time. Meanwhile I, though I have received the summons, cannot help lingering on the road and meddling further in the business of the army, and I am deeply abashed. I shall wait a few days and go up as soon as the Supreme Commander has come into this province.