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 · 149 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 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.
1Asking him to take the post of Commander in Chief
Those crawling barbarians of Xu have gathered the last embers, dared to invade your honored borders, and worked their wicked schemes again. They come only to meet their own destruction, and a day may surely be set for stamping them out. Still more so, since your virtue surpasses that of Dingguo and your authority bestrides that of Lidi. You guard against danger with subtle strategy, and it is truly known that the young can be taught. A strong neighbor has knotted a grudge, and this shows that a loyal subject does not join in harmony with such men. Last year you already shook out your mighty authority, and today you draw on it again for abundant achievement. This side has already called up and driven forth its many troops to rescue your benevolent domain. To speak always of the diligence of fang and claw, one must entrust it to the marvel of the hand that points the trail. Wishing to meet the hopes of all, I would have you bend your rare gifts for a while, and so I dare to ask that you fill the post of Commander in Chief. I look up and await the order of a single shout, to accomplish together the merit of the nine repulses, to make the war power shine, and to snuff out the bandit host early. To escape the shame of Duke Huan of Qi, I rely only on the worth of Xi Hu. I humbly ask that in your private kindness you look deeply into this.