Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 6 — Tang Reports

A letter to the chief minister congratulating him on the return of the envoy who went in to the southern Man賀入蠻使廻狀

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 · 213 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 min

Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 6 — Tang 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.

1The merit of Wei Jiang and Wang Shang laid at Your Excellency's door

右臣得進奏院狀報。入南蠻通和使劉光裕等廻。雲南通和。兼進獻國信金銀器物疋段香藥信馬等。漢使傳詔。則星廻象林。蒙王奉琛。則雲集龍闕。能擧羈縻之術。果悛倔強之心。若非聖上德叶棄瑕。化敷柔遠。則何以感鐻耳鏤身之衆。啓隳肝瀝膽之誠。彼越雉呈祥。未爲盛觀。旅獒入貢。徒見良箴。曷若正在艱時。能安獷俗。使雲南酋長。再遵奉贄之儀。天下賢良。免獻征蠻之策。斯皆相公魏絳陳利。王商振威。已令六詔歸投。卽使八紘淸謐。某比者南尋銅柱。西鎭劍關。曾施上將之謀。免辱大君之命。今則遠聆盛事。倍切歡心。陳賀末由。無任欣抃云云。

For the above: your servant has received a report from the Memorial Office, saying that Liu Guangyu and the others, the envoys for peace who went in to the southern Man, have come back, that Yunnan is at peace, and that it has besides presented tokens of state, vessels of gold and silver, bolts of cloth, perfumes and medicines, and horses sent in good faith. When the Han envoy carried the edict, the stars turned back at Xianglin; when the Meng king offered up his treasures, the clouds gathered at the Dragon Palace. The art of holding by a loose rein was taken up, and in the end their stubborn and headstrong hearts were mended. Had not the sagely ruler's virtue matched his forgiving of flaws, and his teaching spread to the soothing of the far away, how could he have moved a people who pierce their ears and carve their bodies, and opened in them a sincerity that splits the liver and wrings the gall? That the pheasant of Yuechang brought an omen of good was no great sight, and that the great hound of Lü came in as tribute showed only a fine warning. How should either match this, that at a time of hardship the rough customs have been calmed, so that the chiefs of Yunnan follow once more the rite of bearing gifts, and the worthy men of the realm are spared from offering plans for a campaign against the Man? All this is Your Excellency setting out the advantage as Wei Jiang did and shaking out the majesty as Wang Shang did, so that the Six Zhao have already come over and the eight bounds will soon be clear and quiet. I lately sought the bronze pillar in the south and guarded the Sword Pass in the west. I once had a part in the plans of the senior commanders, and I was spared from bringing shame on the great ruler's charge. Now, hearing of this splendid matter from afar, my gladness of heart is twice as keen. I have no way to set forth my congratulation, and I cannot contain my joy and clapping. And so on.

‹ A letter to the chief minister congratulating him on the killing of Huang Chao's rebel bandContentsA statement presenting damask, plain silk, brocade, figured silk and the rest ›Listen to this piece