Letter to the Pyeongan Inspector and Army Commander移平安道巡察使兵使文

From of old there have been two ways of training soldiers. Where army grain is ample, picked and nimble soldiers are recruited, fed on government provisions, gathered in one place, led by commanders and officers, and trained day and night. Such has been the system of maintaining troops from the Tang and Song down to the Ming of today. Where army grain is not ample the soldiers cannot be fed, and so each man, according to his own locality, is bound into squads and files, a man to lead them is found from that village, and they are drilled as is convenient in the intervals of farming, being gathered at times in one place to practice formations and be mustered. This is the method handed down in the "Inner Administration" chapter of Guanzi. In the Tang, Li Baozhen (李抱眞), Military Commissioner of Zelu, also used this method and trained twenty thousand foot soldiers, so that the troops of Zelu became for a time the first among the garrison provinces; this too is one such method.

Now in our country the stored provisions are as though swept clean and there is no way to feed soldiers, so that though one would gather soldiers and train them, there is no means. Moreover the soldiers of distant districts, constantly going back and forth in shifts for drill and muster, carry their own provisions and stand their turns; not only is their toil doubly severe, but in the farming season they lose their farming and sometimes come to starve and scatter. This too is an extreme abuse in the training of soldiers, and more than the feeling of the people can bear.

This office, having looked deeply into this abuse, divided Gyeonggi into four camps and attached the several districts of the province to the four camps according to nearness. The rule of the sogo ranks was throughout to bind men according to their own locality, so that where men are many the ranks are many and where men are few the ranks are few. Never have men been moved from near places and sent to distant ones, or these joined with those and gathered together; in general it is like the way village associations form their mutual-aid societies, and it has striven wholly for the ease of the people. Taking idle days, they drill each in his own place; the company officer reckons their work and the number of days and reports to the battalion commander, the battalion commander to the camp commander, and the camp commander to the Governor and the Army Commander, and rewards and punishments are carried out. When formations are practiced, the soldiers of one camp are sometimes joined and mustered at that one camp, and sometimes the soldiers of the four camps are joined and greatly mustered in the center. This is the outline of how soldiers are trained in Gyeonggi of late.

I hear it reported that in this province the soldiers of every place are divided into monthly shifts and keep watch at the government offices, so that the cost of going and coming is burdensome and they do not escape the abuse of abandoning their farming and losing the season. The soldiers of the sogo ranks each have their own personal service, and now that they stand shifts at the drilling ground besides and still render their own basic service themselves, one body is hurrying between two places, which is beyond the strength of a man to bear. In the first days, when they had been spurred on but had not yet become trained, it was still possible to do this; but now the gunners, lancers, and archers are nearly all made. They should each be made to drill according to the method in their own place, and those newly entered into the sogo ranks should be taught by degrees as it is handed on. Then one man will teach ten and ten men spur on a hundred, and within a few days the people of a whole province will all become trained soldiers; the thing is most convenient and profitable.

Only, there must be a rule of considering rewards for the upper grade who have mastered the skills, and only then can others be spurred on. If, without asking whether a man has mastered the skills or not, all miscellaneous services are remitted merely because he has been entered in the sogo ranks, then the other people who have not entered the sogo ranks will bear that burden one-sidedly and their resentment and distress will surely be great; nor is it a rule that can be practiced for long. Therefore in Gyeonggi the skills were compared within each squad and the men divided into three grades, upper, middle, and lower. For the upper grade such and such heads of miscellaneous service are reckoned and remitted; for the middle grade, the next after that; the lower grade is treated like the commoners, with no separate remission of service. When something is afoot and men are called up, sometimes the upper grade is levied and sometimes the middle. When the upper-grade soldiers are levied, the middle- and lower-grade soldiers stay behind in that place; when the middle-grade soldiers are levied, the lower-grade soldiers stay behind in that place. There is thus neither the trouble of levying all to no purpose nor the abuse of villages standing empty; the thing is most convenient and fitting. Weigh and reckon these conditions fully, ask also whether the feeling of the people finds it suitable or not, and then memorialize and carry it out.

When the border forts and posts were added to in the sinhae year, posts were set up one after another at intervals of five li or ten li, so that the line of sight between them was unbroken. Each puts out a post commander leading a few military officers; and though their rations come from the government granary, all their equipment and attendance come from the soldiers, so that the soldiers cannot bear the hardship and gradually come to scatter, and the stores laid up in the government granary are worn away by this as well. If it bore upon the plan of defense, the trifling abuse might be overlooked; but as the soldiers there are few and insufficient to hold off an enemy, when the ice has formed and defense is pressing, that ground is wholly emptied and they double up into other garrisons. Thus in ordinary times there is only the abuse of oppressing the soldiers and eating away the government's grain, and in an emergency they are of no real use. This matter too should be watched for its season and altered, so that the people of the border may live.

The intent of this office is this. For the several doubled-up posts from Ganggye down to Uiju, let mounds only be built solidly after the example of China's beacon mounds, for keeping watch and raising signal fires, and let no post commanders be appointed. Let only a man of resource among the native soldiers be made chief and kept within, and between them let troops be gathered separately at the large garrisons as a plan for holding them without fail. Then when trouble arises the mounds will be linked and will suffice to give word of it, and the large garrisons, having many troops already, will be strong in position and able to join their strength and control the enemy. For the business of defense and for the care of the people it is convenient and fitting on both sides. Discuss this matter too with the Army Commander, and inquire besides among those native soldiers along the river who are old in border affairs and have discernment, and get a plan that is convenient and can be carried out. Set it out in detail, item by item, in the manner of "such and such a post should be joined to such and such a garrison," and report.

The places where the naval soldiers of this province stand their shifts are only Seonsapo, Nogang, and Gwangnyang, so their service is not utterly wearing. Only, with the service of the missions to China and of the escort troops to Liaodong, the naval soldiers cannot bear the hardship. Of late, besides the regular seasonal missions, special missions go in unbroken succession within sight of one another, and the people's strength is the more exhausted. How is this to be arranged? Weigh it and inquire likewise, get a plan that can be carried out, and report in detail.

Since the war horses have become dearer than before, and there is no way for the people to provide the pack animals for going to and from Liaodong, this is no small anxiety. In the gabo year past the Border Defense Council requested that some scores of jack donkeys be bought from Liaodong, that a hundred-odd mares be gathered at a place among the province's pastures where water and grass are good, and that the donkeys be put among them to breed. Then after some years mules would be born and grow and gradually multiply, and all the places on the post roads where horses are short, and the costs of hauling along the one road to Liaodong and the like, could all be provided from this, so that it would surely be a lasting benefit. It is long since the royal sanction was given, yet I have not heard that it has been carried out. Now that a market has already been opened at Junggang, if this business can be put into effect, donkeys may be bought with such and such goods, many or few, to test whether it will answer or not. Reckon this too and report.

When our country first made its laws it did not escape being makeshift and sketchy, and the border officers' taking their food from the soldiers instead of being supplied by the government is an instance of this. The intent of this office is that, under such and such a head, arrangements be made at the several coastal garrisons so that each lays up several thousand seok of grain as capital, taking it in and giving it out in spring and autumn for the people nearby to receive and eat, roughly after the manner of the district granaries, and that each year the surcharge grain be set aside as the border officers' food, so as to cut off for good the way of their oppressing the soldiers. Then the naval soldiers may nearly be brought back to life. Weigh this too and report.

As for the assistant defense commanders along the river, whenever the ice forms, the magistrates of the interior are made each to lead their own guards and attendant bands and go far in to the several garrisons to hold them together. The intent when this was first set up was for defense alone. Only, this business has already become a long-accumulated abuse, and no benefit to defense has been seen from it either. Now that matters are unlike ordinary times and Ming troops come and go in succession, the magistrates of the interior cannot leave their offices for a single day, and assisting in the defense of the riverside would seem the more difficult and inconvenient. How is this too to be arranged? Weigh the gain and loss and the suitability of it fully, and report.