To the officers and men coming back from the autumn defense of the two prefectures of Chu and Shou楚壽兩州防秋廻戈將士
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 · 151 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min
Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 12 — Dispatches 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.
1They went in plain white silk and come home in brocade
Word to Wang Chengwen and the others. You have long labored at the guard posts and have served in the fighting besides, and I know that you are now to come home from afar. I am much comforted and satisfied. When the Book of Songs spoke of a bundle of thorn wood it could not keep clear of resentful thoughts, and when the Zuo zhuan set down the ripening of the melons there was anger in that too. It was a hard thing in the old days, and today I see loyalty. Moreover Chengwen has gone past his term of three years, drilling a brigade into good order. Meeting the many troubles of the state, he put aside the longing to go home to his village and its well; at a word he forgot himself and offered his life before the army. So he has parted forever from the ranks of the five-man file and has risen high to the honor of the eight seats. I know well that his diligence is real, so why should he fear being thrown away for nothing? Last year he went off in plain white silk, and today he comes back in brocade. Sun Quan's word about putting out one's strength has now come plainly true, and Wang Chang's warning to treasure the body should be held to with all the more care. It is a long road in deep autumn, so take good care of yourselves. Give my greetings to all the officers of the ranks and the men. I send this, and do not set it out in full.