Letter to the Gyeonggi Inspector and the Left and Right Defense Commanders移京畿巡察使左右防禦使文

Of late, since passing through the upheaval, the hearts of the people have not been settled, and at the least alarm, without distinguishing true from false, they are all at once startled and afraid. The old and the young flee and do not know where to go, and again and again they are killed by local bandits or fill up the ditches. Even those who are fortunate enough to live, once they leave their native soil, run out of provisions and have no means of eating, and starve to death in the mountain valleys. They cannot rescue one another, and the course of it is such that it will stop only when all are dead. It is utterly disheartening.

If one traces out how it has come to this, it is not merely that the hearts of the people are shaken and cannot be calmed. It comes in truth from there being no place they can rely on, so that though they would go in and keep themselves safe, they cannot. Therefore they stumble about in panic and cannot settle themselves; and this too is how the circumstances have made them. As for the people of Suwon, because they held Dokseong to be strong, in the days of alarm and movement past the people of that one district alone were unshaken. This is proof that they did not stir because they had something to rely on.

Now you ought to choose, at places where the road is fairly close to where the people of each district live and the lay of the land is good, ground that is steep and strategic and fit for keeping men safe, and repair it by degrees. Mark out the divisions in advance and make them known, so that the people of such a place are to go into such a place. Suppose then that the able-bodied men are drawn out and go forth to fight, while the old and the weak gather within; that stone-throwing carts are set up in numbers and stand ready; and that the stores of the state and of private men are all gathered within. Let the camps be ranged so that they are within sight of one another, so that when there is nothing afoot the people come down from the hills and plow and sow and are no longer anxious, and when something is afoot they take what they have and go straight in and are kept safe. Then though the enemy would strike and lift them out, he cannot.

Moreover, if the fields on all four sides are emptied so that there is nothing to be got by plundering, then in not many days his position of itself grows straitened. Taking the moment when he slackens and turns back, if nimble troops are sent out by turns and bar and cut him off at every point, there is nothing that cannot be won. The essential thing today in holding off the enemy and keeping the people safe is only this; it is the best course, and may not be put off in the least. The only worry is that people have no far-sighted thought and are unwilling to exert themselves in this, taking flight and hiding as the plan they have hit upon. They do not know that once they have fled and hidden there will be nowhere left to go.

Dokseong in Suwon has already become the camp seat of the Right Camp, and the soldiers attached to it are divided into five companies; so here too the five companies should admonish the people of the places near them, and in the idle intervals between farming go in by degrees and repair and make good the places where men are to be kept safe. If one place is so, and other places likewise, then before a year or half a year has passed the thing will take shape of itself. Its gain and loss are plainly other than sitting with folded hands and waiting for death.

Incheon too has a mountain fortress, and I hear that the people there all wish to go into the mountain fortress and be kept safe. This too is what the feeling of the people desires, and it has already been granted; so entrust it wholly to the officials of that prefecture and have them repair and make it good. Besides this there must surely be more than one or two places such as Ssangbu, and others where the people live thickly and the lay of the land is steep and strategic; go about and look them over, see whether they are suitable or not, and report each one with all speed. Admonish the people as well, saying that this is for the people's own sake and not for the state's alone. Though the people be utterly foolish, they will surely know the real gain and loss in it, and there will straightway be those who hear one another and follow; so make it known and admonish them with all the more sincerity.

Seokseong mountain fortress at Yongin stands at the throat of the direct road and the lay of it is very good, but because the people's strength has not been of one accord it has not been completed to this day; this too is a pity. Let the Defense Commander go at once and look at it, reckon how much labor it will take, and report with all speed. Then, after the farming has grown a little idle, it would do no harm to have the soldiers attached to the Front Camp go out to the work for a limit of two days. Pasa fortress likewise should be repaired on this model with soldiers from Yeoju, Icheon, and Yanggeun. This is no more than a day's or two days' labor, yet it can become a benefit for ten thousand generations, and the hearts of the people will surely not come to find it hard. Reckon once more whether it is suitable or not, report back, and carry it out.