A memorial of congratulation on the killing of Huang Chao's followers賀殺戮黃巢徒伴表

Your servant So-and-so speaks. Your servant has had a report from the court liaison office. Tuoba Sigong, military commissioner of the Dingnan Army at the front on the northern road, and Dongfang Kui, military commissioner of the Baoda Army, and the others report that south of Yijun county they killed more than twenty thousand of the followers of the rebel Huang Chao, and took three thousand alive together with the rebel generals. And Li Changyan, military commissioner of Fengxiang, reports that he has learned that the rebel bands in the capital have broken up and scattered, and that on the thirteenth day of the sixth month the emperor went to the Xuanzheng Hall, set out the regalia, and received to the end the congratulations of the chief ministers and the hundred officials. The holy plan has met its mark from afar and the victory of the troops has been set forth swiftly. The pheasant fans are opened and the imperial awe is made grave, the luan banners are raised and the assembled lords are arrayed in reverence, and a glad air floats in heaven and a glad sound rings round the earth. Your servant So-and-so is truly glad and truly claps his hands, bowing his head to the ground, bowing his head to the ground. Your servant humbly considers that the rebel Huang Chao gathered a wild and savage crowd with whistling, and stole his life from one hour to the next, and had not days enough for the nursing of his wickedness, and trusted in his violence and said that heaven could be deceived, and dared to drive a swarm of ants and stand again and again against troops that are as bears. The calamity is only of his own making. Where would he flee from his guilt? Tuoba Sigong and Dongfang Kui and the others hold high places in their persons and grasp bold armies in their hands. Their spirit swallowed up that crawling crowd and their purpose loosed the great anger of the throne, and at six paces and seven paces they drove abreast, and to the left and to the right they cut them down indeed. They fought in the open and shook out their awe, and the enemy lay down in the thickets. They took them on the plain and unfolded their courage, and the force of it was as the burning of dry brush. Not only did they flay faces and pound throats, but they hung the heads up one after another. How much more when Li Changyan guards below Mount Qi and watches that capital, and knows the auspice of the gathering hawks that Yu Tan knew, and tells apart the joy in the cries of birds as Shi Kuang told it. So he sent the good word flying, and it reached the holy hearing far away, and your servant waits to see the time of the great slaughter and to tread upon the fortune of the restoration. Your servant humbly considers that Your Majesty, the Sagely and Divine, Perceptive and Wise, Benevolent and Discerning, Bright and Filial Emperor, shapes and completes the three ultimates and sets out the nine divisions in their fullness. He comes forth from the place of Zhen and stands over the people, and men look up now to the sun of Yao. He goes to the corner of Kun and lays the blame upon himself, and he opens once more the ways of Shun. For a while he has put to labor the army he had kept and nourished, and he has laid the charge far off upon generals of benevolence and worth, and now that the rebel band is cut down he has set out the ranks of congratulation. By the Zhuojin river the evening glow has already been seen to open out the colored regalia, and beneath the Azure Dragon towers the thunder will soon be heard to shake the bells of the imperial carriage. He will make the waves of the four seas clear forever, and will wet all things with the pools of the nine heavens. Your servant holds the axe and the battle axe, and wrongly so, and he still beats the war drum and has not yet sung the song of triumph, and he knows only how to clap his hands and dance. He looks back on how long the wilds of Peng have blocked the roads, and though the hair of his anger stands up, he looks toward the plain of Qin where the smoke and dust are soon to die away, and the brows of his sorrow are already smoothed. Your servant is bound to the keeping of his garrison and cannot offer his congratulation at your traveling palace, and he cannot bear the utmost of his glad clapping, of his springing up, and of his dread. He respectfully sends up this memorial to set forth his congratulation and make it heard. Your servant So-and-so is truly glad and truly leaps up, bowing his head to the ground, bowing his head to the ground. Respectfully spoken.