To his lordship Wang, Commander in Chief — the third都統王令公 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 · 166 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min
Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 9 — 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.
I heard that his lordship would lead picked troops in person and destroy the cornered bandits, and at once I planned to drill my men and go out to the war. I wished to break the jackal's fang and to look up at the head of his horse. Long ago I settled in my heart to tread over mountains and rivers and to brave the frost and dew; early I made the effort and stored up armor and dried grain. I did not reckon that the Rong of Xu would suddenly gather and that the Bi shi (費誓) would have to be declared again, so that the road of the campaign is not opened and the grain carts can hardly pass. For this I set out my sincere earnestness early, and my worry and dread are only the keener. I humbly think that ten thousand men vie to be first to draw the crossbow, and that the eight quarters look for the order to case the bows. I wait to see the dragon go back to the palace gates and the phoenix dance again by the pond of Xun. Though I am one who breathes through a beak and walks lame, I know well how to pray with my mouth and pray with my heart. Early on I glimpsed his great capacity and received his mighty plan from afar. I look up at the Banner Star and little by little seek a place to run and hide; I look down at the teeth of my clogs and harbor only the fear that they will snap. Respectfully I await the word of victory and mean to set out my congratulation then, and before that I have no leisure to declare all that I wish and pray for. And so on.