Dispatch granting Zou Tang, garrison commander of Xuyi, the post of Vice Censor in Chief授盱眙鎭將鄒唐御史中丞
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) · 2 passages · 139 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min
Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 13 — Notices 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 twelfth day of the sixth month, the second year of Guangming
廣明二年六月十二日。使兼都統檢校太尉平章事燕國公。授盱眙鎭將鄒唐御史中丞。
On the twelfth day of the sixth month in the second year of Guangming, the commissioner, concurrently commander-in-chief, acting grand commandant, joint manager of affairs and Duke of Yan, grants Zou Tang, garrison commander of Xuyi, the post of Vice Censor in Chief.
2Keep your heart clean, and face the moon on the Huai
This dispatch follows the edict, and so forth. When a general divides the ground beyond the gate and a grand master crosses the border, he may act alone on authority he has not yet asked for. How much more when he carries out a command already given. So a rich reward is hung high to repay an extraordinary feat. The officer named above carries on the art of the White Ape, and his name stands level with Red Hare. Long ago he came over to good faith, and he has shown loyalty and worth in full. Though he has moved to a post beneath the pillar, he still falls short of what the army hopes for. He should rise to a seat of his own and press on, sleeping on his spear. Keep your heart clean and honest, and gladly face the moon mirrored in the Huai. Boast of your strength and dash, and bring no shame on the wind that breaks the waves. This matter must follow the edict. An ink rescript is issued granting him the post of Vice Censor in Chief.