Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 8 — Enclosures

To Prince Li Keju of Youzhou — the third幽州李可擧大王 第三

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 · 243 Chinese characters · reading time 1.0 min

Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 8 — Enclosures 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.

1Asking for the loan of five thousand picked horsemen

伏以蜂蟻巢窠。猶能稔惡。熊羆隊伍。未見摧兇。在於義士忠臣。莫不痛心疾首。某蓋謂去年奉詔。遂於近境旋師。然今若終不自行。必恐竟無所就。已從中夏。遍閱大軍。待剗淮戎。卽登汴道。但以指其百勝。決此一行。人不異心。事希同力。侍中大王族榮周姓。爵貴漢封。固多報國之誠。常貯安邦之術。見玆禍難。忍不憂勤。某旣事征行。輒申控告。伏望差借兵士。助平寇戎。得貴藩精騎五千。勝諸道羸師十萬。佇收京闕。剋在旬時。亦已先具奏陳。所貴免成專輒。申包胥之告急。與此雖殊。趙充國之請行。于今可試。幸垂亮察。必賜允從。不敢獨擅茂勳。所冀均分重賞。忠誠之切。實在於斯。伏惟永存始終。早示可否。未間顒望。可想眷翹云云。

I humbly consider that the nests of wasps and ants can still ripen their evil, while the ranks of bears and grizzlies are not seen to break the wicked. Among righteous men and loyal subjects there is none whose heart does not ache and whose head does not hurt. Last year I received the imperial writ, and so I turned my army back at the near border. But now, if in the end I do not go myself, I fear that in the end nothing will be achieved. Already, since midsummer, I have reviewed the great army throughout. I wait only to scrape away the rebels of Huai, and then I take the road to Bian. Pointing to a hundred victories, I would settle this one march; but men must have no divided heart, and the work asks for strength joined. The Palace Attendant and Prince is glorious in kin through the surname of Zhou and noble in rank through the enfeoffment of Han. He has much sincerity in repaying the state, and he has long stored the arts that keep a country safe. Seeing this calamity, can he bear not to be troubled and to toil? Since I have set out on campaign, I lay my plea before him. I bow low and hope that he will spare soldiers and lend them, to help put down the bandits. Five thousand picked horsemen of his domain are better than a hundred thousand worn soldiers of the many circuits. The gathering in of the capital gates may be looked for within ten days. I have also stated this to the throne beforehand, and what I value is to be free of acting on my own. This differs from Shen Baoxu telling of his need, and yet the asking to go of Zhao Chongguo may be tried today. I hope he will look clearly upon it and surely grant his consent. I do not dare take rich merit for myself alone; I hope rather that heavy rewards be shared evenly. The keenness of loyalty lies truly in this. I humbly ask that he keep the beginning and the end for long, and show me early whether it may be or not. In the meantime I look up and wait, and he may imagine the heart that turns to him, and so on.

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