Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 12 — Dispatches

To Zhang Xiong of Chuzhou — to the man who asked to lead the army out楚州張雄

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 · 152 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.

1The one who rouses me is Xiong

報張雄中丞。得狀知已點練兵士。兼請出軍西去。討逆賊徒。憤氣勃興。忠詞懇切。覽之嘉歎。深寘于懷。且每値寇戎稍侵疆圉。雄必心騰勇略。首唱義聲。去年已建殊功。今日又申丹請。不辭危於馬革。願展用於豹韜。實謂起予者雄。始可與言兵已矣。則帝委之以郡侯。吾待之以國士。永揚茂績。固在良時。然彼州司事力猶困。未可便謀征役。且宜更候指揮。兵士各與慰安。秋深善自將息。馳此不具。

Word to Vice Censor in Chief Zhang Xiong. I have your report and know that you have already mustered and drilled your soldiers, and that you ask besides to lead the army out westward and punish the rebel crowd. Your indignation rises strongly and your loyal words are earnest. Reading them I sighed in praise, and I have set them deep in my heart. Whenever the bandit host has trespassed even a little on the borders, Xiong's heart has leapt with brave designs and he has been the first to raise the cry of righteousness. Last year he set up rare merit, and today he puts forward a request of red sincerity again, not shrinking from the danger of the horse's hide and wishing to be used in the arts of war. Truly it may be said that the one who rouses me is Xiong, and that with him one may at last speak of war. So the Emperor entrusts him with a commandery as its lord, and I treat him as a man of the state's own worth. To make a rich record known for all time lies surely in a good season. Yet the strength of that prefecture office is still hard pressed, and a campaign cannot be planned at once, so for now you should wait once more for direction. Comfort each of the soldiers. Autumn is deep, so take good care of yourself. I send this in haste and do not set it out in full.