Rescript Not Allowing Bak Sinhu (朴信侯) to Decline the Grant of Grand Master of Comprehensive Counsel and Great General of the Left and Right Guard, Together with the Command That He Thereafter Retire in Ease朴信侯讓通議大夫左右衛大將軍。仍令致仕不允批答。
云云。夫父之賢。非子之功。然父有顯名。則子必蒙其蔭。況子者父所醞釀成就者也。子之賢迺父之功。然則用其子而遺其父可乎。爾才堪經遠而官纔涉於中郞。勇足蓋時而位不登於大將。是朕之所嘗嘆訝也。今爾子弘毅。以萬人之敵。當千騎之胡。聞戰鼓而輒呼數聲。激其士氣。薄戎圍而無却寸步。折彼賊鋒。雖古烈將。何以加之。是汝訓鍊之有漸也。褒其身。不足償其功也。是用不拘資級。登爾于三品。仍許在家食祿。將以勸其能者。無煩遜辭。祗服訓命。云云。
And so forth.
Now a father's worth is not his son's merit. Yet if a father has a name that stands out, the son must needs receive its shade. How much more, since a son is what the father has moulded and made, a son's worth is itself the father's merit. Then shall one use the son and leave the father aside?
You had talent enough to manage far-reaching things, yet your office barely reached Palace Gentleman; your valour was such as might cover an age, yet your place did not rise to Great General. This is what I have long sighed and wondered at.
Now your son Hongui (弘毅), with a talent to match ten thousand men, met a thousand horse of the barbarians: hearing the battle drum he at once shouted a few times and roused the spirit of the soldiers, and drawing near the barbarians' ring he did not give back an inch and broke the very point of the enemy's blade. What could a fierce general of old have added to this? It is by your taming and teaching him by degrees; to praise his person alone falls short of repaying your merit.
Therefore, without being bound by grade, I raise you to the third rank, and permit you thereafter to stay at home and eat your stipend. It is to encourage men of ability; do not trouble me with words of refusal, but reverently receive the command.
And so forth.