Letter to Suwon Prefecture移水原府文

The troops belonging to the right camp have not yet been ordered into ranks, and the days have dragged on and several months have already passed. That the outer counties do not carry out the court's commands is generally like this, and it is utterly astonishing. Looking into the register of the ordering into ranks that the Defense Commander Gu Sajik (具思稷) made in days past, not only is it tangled and mixed and without any leading, but within the register the names of the soldiers are not set down and it says only so many soldiers actually present and so many with some impediment; so that which soldier is actually present and which soldier has an impediment cannot be known, and it is like drawing a picture on water and looking for the traces of it. To take this and call it drilling troops is no different from children's play.

In general one camp leads five battalions, one battalion leads five companies, one company leads three banners, one banner leads three squads, and one squad, counting the soldiers who cook the food, is eleven men; and this is the great net-cord of ordering into ranks. Therefore the company officer sifts the banner chiefs himself, the banner chief sifts the squad chiefs himself, and the squad chief picks his own soldiers himself. If hereafter the troops be not in order and the sturdy and the weak be not sifted out, the company officer shall bear the guilt of it himself and it cannot be turned upon others. And so the troops cannot but be picked and the teaching cannot but be diligent, and they become fit to be put out and used on the field of battle. What is called handling them the better the more there are is only this clearness of division, and it is truly no empty word.

Now those who are commanders do not understand this intent at all, and besides are haughty and think themselves great and hold that there is nothing they cannot do, so that they give no mind at all to these exact and close particulars; which is the more to be sighed over. Suwon in ordinary times reached a soldiery of some seventeen thousand men; so now, though it be after passing through the fire of war, there is no reason that there should be only some thousand. This must have come about because the company officers did not pick the soldiers themselves but let the chief instructors (都訓導) and the clerks in charge work their tricks in the midst of it.

What is past is past; but from now on look into it closely again. Hear what Jeon Sangmun (全尙文), the cheongyonggwan of the Directorate who goes this time, has to say, and order them into ranks yourself in person: passing the order down in turn from the first company and the second, have each lead his own troops and come and gather within the prefecture, and muster the soldiers and make a register of them one by one and send it up with the haste of fire. When the soldiers of the five battalions of the one camp have finished being ordered into ranks, report it at once and the tallies for drilling troops shall be sent; and the prefect shall be sent besides to join the troops of the five battalions and have them practice the art of formations at Dokseong. Put this in practice with haste.