Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 3 — Reports

A statement of thanks for appointing Zhong Chuan surveillance commissioner of Jiangxi謝除鐘傳充江西觀察使狀

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) · 1 passages · 194 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 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.

1Zhong Chuan and Gao Maoqing

右臣先奏請授鍾傳江西觀察使。其高茂卿乞別除廉鎭。伏奉七月五日詔旨允許。特賜獎飾者。天從素望。風遞仙音。旣諧擧善之誠。實叶分憂之寄。伏以鍾傳比從屬郡。來援府城。撫綏而使洽衆情。禦備而能成遠略。高茂卿旣多梗阻。不免佪翔。固難掉鞅而旋。豈許垂橐而入。臣以戒之在鬪。事可從權。遂具奏論。輒陳利害。不料一言之善。遽得動天。終令二將之才。皆榮列土。鍾陵江徼。銅柱海隅。政成而必有可觀。恩重而各得其所。臣限拘鎭守。不獲稱謝行在。無任感激兢灼之至。謹奉狀陳謝以聞。謹奏。

The above. Your servant earlier reported and asked that Zhong Chuan be appointed surveillance commissioner of Jiangxi, and that Gao Maoqing be given some other command. He respectfully received the edict of the fifth day of the seventh month, which granted it and bestowed special praise besides. Heaven has followed his plain wish and the wind carries the voice of the immortals, and it agrees with the sincerity that raises up the good and truly meets the trust that shares the lord's cares. Your servant bows low and considers that Zhong Chuan lately came from a subordinate prefecture to relieve the city of this command, and that in soothing men he satisfied the feeling of the multitude, and in guarding and making ready he could carry out a far reaching plan. Gao Maoqing has met with much that blocks him and cannot help circling about; he can hardly shake his reins and turn back, and how should he be allowed to come in with an empty bag? Your servant, holding that what must be guarded against lies in strife and that a matter may follow what the moment allows, set it out in full in his report and stated the gain and the loss of it. He did not reckon that the good of a single word would suddenly move heaven, and that the talents of the two generals would both win the honor of a share of land. On the river frontier of Zhongling and at the sea corner of Tongzhu the government will be brought about and will surely be worth the seeing, and the kindness is heavy, and each has found his place. Your servant is bound to the guard of his command and cannot give his thanks at the traveling court. He cannot bear the utmost of his gratitude and his burning awe. He respectfully sends up this statement to set forth his thanks and make it heard. Respectfully submitted.

‹ A statement of thanks for the added office of director of the chancellery and the grant of a real fiefContentsA statement of thanks for the edict in the emperor's own hand making Xi Gongfu supervisor of the army ›Listen to this piece