Letter to the Gyeonggi Inspector on Rebuilding Namhansanseong移京畿巡察使修築南漢山城文

Namhansanseong is the fence of the capital. The discussion to rebuild it has now been settled. Some of those who discuss it doubt that the labour is great and the people few, and not enough to bring it to pass. If convenient measures are not laid down and the work managed on a large plan, the business will not come easily to pass and the people's strength will be worn out first, which is of the gravest concern.

There is a system in the raising of walls. When the men of old spoke of walls they reckoned them all in a thousand chi or a hundred chi, and what is called a chi (雉) is the gokseong of today. The spirit of a wall and its vital places lie all in the gokseong. Once the gokseong are raised, and arrow and stone reach one another across the hundred paces between those that face each other, then though the wall between them take barely a shape, the enemy cannot come near.

Now by my reckoning the Gwangju troops entered in the muster are one thousand men; if each fifty are made to raise one gokseong, the gokseong should come to twenty. Let the hundred monk soldiers (僧軍) of Yujeong (惟政) raise two gokseong besides, and the troops led by Gwon Eungwon (權應元) raise one. For Gwangju's three months of winter duty troops, reckon the number and have a hundred men raise two gokseong and fifty men one. Let the clerks and government hands of the prefecture, and such holders of local rank as have a mind for the state's business, each put out their strength and raise one or two gokseong.

If it is done thus, the gokseong come in all to seven or eight and twenty. If each two gokseong stand a hundred paces apart, one gokseong takes up forty or fifty paces; so if they are ranged along the lie of the mountain ridge and linked one to another, there is of itself a lie that cannot be fallen upon, without waiting for the wall to be wholly raised. And if fifty men raise one gokseong, their strength is ample and it may be brought to pass within a few days. Done thus, the great lie of the whole fortress is already made.

Reckoned in all, the compass of Namhansanseong is fifteen thousand nine hundred some feet, and of that four thousand feet are sound. The south gate and the north-west face, moreover, are all steep places of a measureless height, where there is no need to put out much strength. Only from east of the south gate as far as the water, some half a majang (a short way) between, is a little flat and low, and the labour of raising the wall ought to be bent wholly upon this.

The fallen stones of the old wall lie in numbers at the foot of the mountain, and it is much easier to raise the wall only after they have first been carried up the mountain. If men were to roll them and bear them and carry them up from the foot of the mountain, it would take much human strength and could not be done. A machine ought to be made to carry them up.

The method is this. First set two posts on the mountain top and lay a crossbar on the posts, so that it turns like a spinning wheel for drawing thread. Then make a great arrowroot rope, lay two strands of it across the crossbar, and at the rope's end make a gear for loading the stones. If a few men load the stones at the foot of the mountain and five or six men pull from the top of the mountain, then though the stone be very heavy it can be raised in a moment. Within one day the stones at the foot of the mountain will all be up above, and the labour will be very handy. After the snow has melted, have the troops of each unit provide the arrowroot rope and the timber beforehand, and when the time comes let them go to the work all together, so that there is no burden of delay.

It was this office's intent to feed the troops raising the wall from government rations, but cauldrons and the like are not to be had, and it is hard as well to provide for a thousand and more troops. Yet if they are made to eat their own rations and labour the whole day long, the people's feeling will not be heartened and the business will not come easily to pass; that is not the sense of the old saying that the sound of the great drum could not overcome the sound of the work. I wish to brew ale in quantity and use it to hearten the troops. Rice would seem not hard to come by, and this office can reckon out a hundred some seok as well.

Only the gear for brewing is hard to come by of a sudden. If rice and yeast are reckoned out and shared among the clerks, holders of local rank and government hands of the town of Gwangju, and among the monks of the neighbourhood who have so much as a jar, each being given a stock enough to brew a few tubs, and it is then collected and used when the time comes, the strength of many will be gathered without coming to a burden. Let this business be given wholly to Pi Inmun (皮仁文) and Yi Bongeok (李奉億), local clerks of the prefecture with merit in war, to take charge of and carry out. Let the province too take measures and make a plan for keeping up the supply.

Have a hundred some seok of salt carried into the mountain fortress as well, and given day by day as a reward to those among the troops who labour diligently; this too is one means of heartening the work.

In general this fortress is a steep place made by Heaven itself, the first among the mountain fortresses of the eight provinces. If the people of Gwangju, great and small, will give their strength as to their own business and make it a plan for one toil and a long ease, then hereafter, though there be a turn of trouble, they may lay their heads down at peace. Admonish them again in full measure and put it in hand. Even after the gokseong are raised, if the labour is not brought to pass, let the muster troops of other districts carry it on within a set term so that it comes to pass. For the points left unfinished besides these, let the province weigh them together and put them in hand.