38 t h e a n n a l s o f k i n g t’a e j o
His horse successfully jumped over it, but the soldiers who followed him
could not. T’aejo escaped the crisis by shooting big arrows with feathers
(taeujŏn) at the pursuing enemy. He shot arrows seventeen times and killed
the same number of enemy soldiers. The tide of battle having turned to his
advantage, T’aejo finally crushed the enemy decisively.
In this battle, T’aejo started with twenty big arrows with feathers, and
when the battle was over, he found that three of them were still left. To his
aides he said, “Shooting the enemy today, I only aimed at their left eyes.”
When his aides went out to examine the dead soldiers, they found his word
to be true. In the meantime, the remaining enemy troops took refuge in a
rugged area and built a wall of brushwood to reinforce their perimeter.
Dismounting from his horse, T’aejo sat on a chair and ordered a banquet
with music to be held for his soldiers. A monk named Sinjo offered wine
and meat to T’aejo. [A little later], T’aejo ordered his soldiers to set fire to
the wall of brushwood constructed by the enemy, and the place was soon
filled with smoke and fire.
The enemy, now in trouble, tried to fight back with all their strength. An
arrow from the enemy hit a wine bottle in front of T’aejo, but T’aejo did not
move at all, sitting relaxed in his chair.
T’aejo ordered his officers, including Kim Sahun, No Hyŏnsu, and Yi
Manjung, to attack the enemy, and they killed virtually all of them. From
that time, whenever the Japanese raided and captured our people, they
would always ask, “Where is your commander Yi now?” They would not
dare approach T’aejo’s army and invaded only after they confirmed that
T’aejo was nowhere near them.
One day U Innyŏl visited T’aejo at his private home and sat with him in
the western hall face-to-face. The visitor and host saw three mice running
away along the eaves of the roof, so T’aejo called his young servant and told
him to bring a bow and three small kodori arrows. While they were waiting
for the bow and arrows, one of the mice came back and passed across the
eaves again. T’aejo said, “I will just shoot it without hurting it.” When he
finally shot an arrow at the mouse, it fell down to the ground but ran away
without being hurt. He then did the same with the remaining two mice.
In the fourth month of the fourth year (1378) of King U, numerous
Japanese enemy ships were gathered at Ch’angnyang^97 and sailed to- A place in Kanghwa island.