Book IX 5619th Day (Mujin)
The people were mobilized from all across the country to construct the city
walls of the capital. They were from Kyŏngsang, Chŏlla, and Kangwŏn
Provinces as well as the Northwest Region south of Anju and the Northeast
Region south of Hamju, and their number amounted to 118,070 altogether.
The construction sites were already measured and numbered according
to the order of the characters in the Thousand Character Classic (Qianziwen).
Starting from the east side of Mt. Paegak with the character 天 (heaven), the
sites extended to the west side of Mt. Paegak, ending with the character 弔
(condolence). The length of the construction site, including a hill in the
western mountains, was a total of 59,500 ch’ŏk. A character was assigned
every 600 ch’ŏk, and the total number of assigned characters amounted to
ninety- seven. Each site with a different character was divided into six sec-
tions, and to every site covered by two characters, twelve personnel were
assigned. They included one director, one vice director, supervisors, vice
supervisors, and administrators.
Calculating the population of each county and province, the sites from
character 天 to character 日 (sun) were assigned to the Northeast Region;
the sites from character 月 (moon) to character 寒 (cold), to Kangwŏn
Province; the sites from character 來 (come) to character 珍 (treasure), to
Kyŏngsang Province; the sites from character (plum) to character character
(dragon), to Chŏlla Province; and the sites from character 師 (teacher) to
character 弔 (condolence), to the Northwest Region. The supervising offi-
cials were making the people work day and night, and the king ordered
them to stop working at night because of the severe cold weather.
To pray for the success of constructing city walls, the king offered sacrifices
to Mt. Paegak and the Deities of the Five Directions (Obangsin).^2
10th Day (Kisa)
The king gave orders to mobilize two hundred workers from the Left and
Right Kyŏnggi Provinces to work on the construction of the Daoist Temple
of Brilliant Rectification (Sogyŏkchŏn).- “Five directions” indicates the four cardinal directions of east, west, south, and north
plus center.