To Geng Yuanshen of Yunzhou — sending clothing and tea鄆州耿元審
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 · 107 Chinese characters · reading time 0.4 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.
1From of old, famous generals have often been of the Geng family
A notice to Geng Yuanshen. From of old, famous generals have often been of the Geng family. Geng Gong, Jia Fu, Geng Bing, and Geng Yan followed one another in a fair repute. Speak of their descendants down the years, and craft and design are surely rich among them. Though your name is not of the same double sound, your will can stand alone. Wait until you unfold your loyalty and courage, and look then for favor and honor of your own. Still more, you have met an autumn of danger and hardship, and this is truly the time to set up merit and achievement, a day of repute and toil [these three characters seem to be an intrusion]. Strive to hold to first and last, and be careful in going forward and in keeping hidden. All the rest I have had Fan Gu tell you face to face. Now I send a set of clothing and two catties of crow-beak tea. When they arrive, receive each of them. The autumn is cool, so take the best of care. Know it all.