A statement of thanks for the edict in the emperor's own hand making Xi Gongfu supervisor of the army謝郄公甫充監軍手詔狀
Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) 桂苑筆耕集 · Choe Chiwon · 886 (Tang, 6th year of the Zhonghe era · Silla, 12th year of King Heongang) · 2 passages · 159 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min
Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 3 — Reports A collection Choe Chiwon made by choosing out of the writings of his four years in the headquarters of Gao Pian, military commissioner of Huainan under the Tang, binding them into twenty volumes and presenting them to King Heongang of Silla in 886. It holds 366 pieces — memorials and reports sent up to the emperor, the proclamation denouncing Huang Chao, letters to the several military commissioners, orders and dispatches issued to those under him, Daoist and Buddhist texts for services, funeral offerings, records written for the outer wall of Chengdu and for a painting of Annam, and the reports and poems he sent up to Gao Pian. Here is the first report, which begins "I am a man of Silla," and the proclamation against Huang Chao with its line, "Not only do all the men of the world think to kill you openly; the ghosts under the earth have already discussed cutting you down in secret." The last volume holds the poems he made on the voyage home to the country he had left at twelve. It is the oldest collection by a Korean that survives, and when Hong Seokju and Seo Yugu printed it with movable type in 1834 they called it "the root and the beginning of the writing of our Eastern Country." Their two prefaces are translated with it.
1One rescript and one edict in the emperor's own hand
伏奉某月日勑書手詔各一封。
Your servant respectfully received one rescript and one edict in the emperor's own hand, of such a month and such a day.
The above. Xi Gongfu, newly appointed supervisor of the army of this circuit, arrived on the tenth day of the fourth month. Your servant has received the sage kindness that granted him a rescript and an edict in the emperor's own hand, and that comforted and instructed your servant and his officers besides. An edict came down from the ninth heaven and kindness was proclaimed ten thousand li away, and the ranked generals of the Willow Camp shouted for joy and the many officials of the Cassia Garden wept in their gratitude. Your servant bows low and considers that Xi Gongfu has always carried talent and strategy in him and has long soothed the troops, that his work south of the Han was worth the seeing, and that the feeling of men north of the Jiang had something to lean upon. Since it has been seen that he is generous and can win the multitude, he will surely make the army win by keeping it in accord. Your servant looks up and peers at the writing of five colors and bends down to comfort the soldiers of the three ranks, and the glad air rises high and presses upon the dread sun, and the sound of joy shakes far upon the warm wind. Your servant and his officers cannot bear the utmost of their gratitude for such kindness, of their keen feeling, of their glad clapping at this honor, and of their awe. He respectfully sends up this statement to set forth his thanks and make it heard. Respectfully submitted.