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

To Xu Qing of Chuzhou — Zhexi is luring Qin Yan滁州許勍

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 · 204 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 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.

1Without good faith a man cannot stand

報許勍。語曰。兵食可去。無信不立。則知守信之道。乃是立身之本歟。苟若壞隳。自爲顚覆。訪知近日。浙西周相公頻差上元鎭使馬曁。專齎書曲。兼將金銀。送到和州。說誘秦彦。令歸浙岸。許授霅川。信使繼來。事情甚細。則未知秦彦終欲如何。且浙西素泛勳勞。驟沾恩寵。謂得長久。遽爲驕矜。殊不知人盡指楹。鬼多瞰室。惡旣天稔。道唯日亡。今更阻絶我通津。動搖我屬郡。已乖衆議。可見前途。以勍直木千尋。精金百鍊。固無憂於邪曲。終不改於貞剛。況乃邦媛相隨。家肥是保。永除異慮。必享同榮。或恐未審浙西所爲。先此告示。悉之。

A notice to Xu Qing. The Analects says, "Troops may be given up and food may be given up, but without good faith a man cannot stand." From this we know that the way of keeping faith is the very root of establishing oneself. If a man breaks it down, he overturns himself. I have learned by inquiry that of late Minister Zhou of Zhexi has again and again sent Ma Ji, the garrison commissioner of Shangyuan, charged with carrying letters and bearing gold and silver as well, to Hezhou, to coax Qin Yan into going back to the bank of the Zhe, with a promise to grant him Zhachuan. His envoys come one after another, and the matter is woven very fine. What Qin Yan means to do in the end I do not yet know. Moreover Zhexi has always overflowed with claims of merit. Steeped of a sudden in favor, he thought it could last long and at once grew proud and haughty. He does not in the least know that every man points at the pillar, that ghosts in numbers peer into his chamber, that his evil is already ripe for Heaven, and that his way wastes away by the day. Now he blocks and cuts off the ford by which we pass and stirs up the prefectures under our charge. He has gone against the judgment of the many, and his road ahead can be foreseen. You, sir, are straight timber a thousand fathoms tall and refined gold tried a hundred times. Truly there is no fear of crookedness in you, and in the end you will not change your uprightness and firmness. Still more, the fair ones of the state follow one another to you and the richness of your house is kept safe. Put away every other thought for good, and you will surely share the same glory. Fearing that you may not yet know in detail what Zhexi is doing, I give you notice of it first. Know it all.

Interlinear notes 1

The original says only "a saying has it." The words are from the Yan Yuan chapter of the Analects. — translator

‹ To Zhang Gao of Shouzhou — to one setting out for his lordship's camp Contents To Zhang Yifu of Chuzhou — to the man who sent in a fine ›Listen to this piece