A Refutation of the Life of Han Xin (韓信傳)韓信傳駮
予讀漢書韓信傳。有不可以不駮者。敢論之曰。信之罪己不足容誅。然高祖不能無非。而班固之筆。有不公焉。夫君有疑臣之心。則伏以待誅。禮也。因其疑而有叛君之心。人臣之罪。莫甚於斯。韓信是已。固已不容誅矣。然信之罪。本高祖養而成之也。何以言之。人有讒信叛。高祖卽信而患焉。是不明也。夫讒言。有疑似不明者。有立可斷者。信當劉項相拒時。以國士無雙之才。鷹瞵虎視。當此時。與楚則漢危。與漢則楚危。楚漢安危。在一信手。而信卒與漢。與平天下爲功臣。當時已有蒯通說信鼎足天下。信不忍背漢。謝不用其計。夫勢有可爲。其不反如此。豈於天下爲一家之日。以區區一淮陰。欲拒大漢耶。是立可斷者。苟不能明斷。而患其叛逆。則以萬乘之國討之。豈不勝一淮陰。而乃以僞遊雲夢而擒之耶。嗚呼。以天下之主。用詐計紿一臣。奈天下萬邦何。械至洛陽。遂赦之者。以無罪也。如知其無罪。宜不奪其王。因以弭其怨可也。反降以爲侯。以此激其意。是謂蹈睡虎尾令寤者也。信由是怨漢。且疑其卒必見誅。故不得已而謀叛。此非高祖養而成之者耶。吾故曰高祖不能無非也。班固之贊曰。信徼一時之權變。用詐力成功。見疑強大。卒謀叛逆。終於滅亡。其所謂見疑謀逆就亡。信然矣。所謂詐力成功者。未知其何指耶。信爲漢王破強楚虜魏王。禽夏說擊龍且。皆用奇計。指此而言耶。此奇也非詐也。兵貴無常。時或用奇計。非信之奇計。高祖亦不應有天下。果謂之詐。則高祖用詐力之臣而得天下。亦非正也。所謂詐計者。若高祖之僞遊雲夢。蕭何之紿信謁呂后者。幾乎矣。班固不以貶者。豈以聖君賢相而諱之耶。其所謂徼一時之權變。則蕭何，曹參，張良皆是。何獨信哉。吾故曰班固之筆有不公也。
Reading the life of Han Xin in the History of the Han (漢書), I find in it what cannot be left unrefuted. I make bold to discuss it and say:
Han Xin's crime is indeed not such as leaves room for sparing him the axe. Yet Gaozu too cannot be without his wrong, and there is something not even-handed in Ban Gu's brush as well.
Now when a sovereign has a mind of suspicion toward his minister, the proper thing is to lie prostrate and await the axe. To harbor because of that suspicion a mind of turning against the sovereign — among a minister's crimes there is none graver than this, and such was Han Xin's. Indeed it already leaves no room for sparing him the axe. Yet Han Xin's crime was from the first reared and brought to completion by Gaozu. Why do I say so?
When someone slandered Han Xin as turning rebel, Gaozu at once believed it and was troubled; this was a want of clear-sightedness. Now among slanderous words there are those that are plausible and hard to make out, and those that can be judged at once. In the days when Liu Bang and Xiang Yu stood against each other, Han Xin, with a talent unmatched among the gentlemen of the realm, glared like a hawk and looked out like a tiger. At that time, if he sided with Chu then Han was in peril, and if he sided with Han then Chu was in peril; the safety and the danger of Chu and of Han lay in the one hand of Han Xin. And Han Xin in the end sided with Han, and settled the world beneath Heaven, and became a minister of merit. Already at that time Kuai Tong (蒯通) coaxed Han Xin to divide the world in three and stand like the legs of a cauldron; but Han Xin could not bear to turn against Han, and declined and did not use that plan. Now when his not rebelling was like this, in a position where he might well have done it, how should he, on the day when the world beneath Heaven had become one household, have meant to stand against the great house of Han with one petty Huaiyin (淮陰)? This is a thing that could have been judged at once.
And if he could not judge it clearly and was troubled about his rebelling, then, striking at him with a state of ten thousand chariots, how should he have failed to overcome one Huaiyin, that he must pretend to go roaming at Yunmeng (雲夢) and so take him captive? Ah, the sovereign of the world beneath Heaven used a trick and deceived one minister; what then is he to do with the myriad regions of the world?
That he put him in the collar and brought him to Luoyang and then pardoned him in the end was because he had no crime. If he knew that he had no crime, the right thing was not to take his throne from him, and so to put an end to his resentment. Instead he lowered him to be a marquis and thereby stirred up his heart; and this is what is called treading on the tail of a sleeping tiger and waking it. From this Han Xin resented Han, and suspected besides that in the end he must surely be beheaded, and so he plotted rebellion because he could do no other. Is this not what Gaozu reared and brought to completion? Therefore I say that Gaozu too cannot be without his wrong.
In Ban Gu's encomium it says, 「Han Xin watched for the turn of the moment of his age and accomplished his merits by deceit and by force; but being suspected for his strength and greatness, he plotted rebellion at last and was destroyed in the end.」 What he calls 「being suspected, plotting rebellion, and going on to destruction」 is indeed so. But what he calls 「accomplishing his merits by deceit and by force」 — I do not know what it points to.
Han Xin, for the King of Han (漢王), broke the strong state of Chu and took the King of Wei (魏王) captive, and took Xia Yue (夏說) captive and struck at Long Ju (龍且), and all of this was the using of extraordinary stratagems. Is it this that he points to? This is extraordinary, not deceitful. In warfare it is prized that there be nothing fixed, and so at times extraordinary stratagems are used. Had it not been for Han Xin's extraordinary stratagems, Gaozu too would not have possessed the world beneath Heaven. And if this is indeed to be called deceit, then Gaozu got the world by using a minister who employed deceit and force; and that is not upright either.
What are properly called tricks are rather such things as Gaozu's pretending to go roaming at Yunmeng, and Xiao He's (蕭何) deceiving Han Xin into going to wait upon Empress Lü (呂后). That Ban Gu did not revile these — was it that he shrank from it, holding them a holy sovereign and a worthy chief minister? And as for what he calls 「watching for the turn of the moment of his age」, Xiao He and Cao Can and Zhang Liang were all such; how should it be Han Xin alone? Therefore I say that there is something not even-handed in Ban Gu's brush.