Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 5 — Memorials to the Throne

A statement discussing the drafting and dispatch of soldiers奏論抽發兵士狀

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 · 209 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 min

Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 5 — Memorials to the Throne 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.

1An edict to draft twenty thousand men from four prefectures

當道先准詔旨。抽廬，壽，滁，和等州兵馬共二萬人。仍委監軍使押領赴軍前者。臣當時已各帖諸州。令排比點檢。次又得進奏院狀報。近奉詔旨。更於諸州催促兵士者。

This circuit earlier received, in accordance with an edict, the order to draft twenty thousand horse and foot in all from the prefectures of Luzhou, Shouzhou, Chuzhou and Hezhou, and to entrust them to the Army Supervisor to lead to the front. Your servant at that time had already sent notices to each of the prefectures, ordering them to muster the men and inspect them. Then I received a report from the Memorial Office, saying that an edict had lately been received to press the several prefectures again for soldiers.

2If armies that are enemies are gathered in one place

右臣伏以兵惟飾怒。雖尙勇於戰征。師克有和。固推誠於輯睦。苟非得衆。何以成功。臣當管廬州與和州。舊有讎嫌。至今疑忌。唯謀以怨報怨。未遂知和而和。孫端新授滁州。又與秦彦有隙。旣是滁，和接境。動有他虞。若於光蔡會軍。必酬舊憾。事非便穩。理合奏論。臣自得招降。多方控馭。粗能禁戢。免有動搖。如令各出兵戈。必恐自相魚肉。輒陳利害。冀愼始終。謹錄奏聞。伏聽勑旨。

For the above: your servant humbly considers that an army is nothing but anger dressed out. Though it prizes courage in battle, an army wins by concord, and so sincerity is truly given over to harmony. If one does not win the many, by what is anything achieved? Luzhou and Hezhou, which your servant governs, have borne a grudge against each other from of old, and they suspect and resent each other to this day. They plan only to repay hatred with hatred, and they have not come to know concord and be at concord. Sun Duan has newly been appointed to Chuzhou north of the Yangzi, and he too is at odds with Qin Yan. Since Chuzhou and Hezhou share a border, trouble comes of the least thing. If the armies are gathered at Guangzhou and Caizhou, they will surely settle their old grudges, and the matter will not be safe, so by reason it is right to report and discuss it. Since your servant received their surrender I have curbed them by many means, and I have been able roughly to hold them in check and keep them from stirring. If each is made to bring out his weapons, I fear they will butcher one another. So I set out the gain and the harm, hoping that the beginning and the end alike be handled with care. I respectfully set this down and report it. I humbly await the imperial command.

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