Dispatch putting Sun Duan in temporary charge of the military and civil affairs of Shuzhou孫端權知舒州軍州事
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 · 147 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min
Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 14 — 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.
1A great man treads on the blade to take merit and fame
This dispatch carries out the decision handed down. Long ago Li Bi said, "A great man born into this world must tread on the blade to take merit and fame. How can he plod along the steps and beg for office?" This is to store up a will that can grow stout, and to plan for oneself in a way that can be carried through — to put off the lambskin robe in the evening and drive the bear-crossbar carriage in the morning. Not to be shamed before the wise men of old lies in just this. The officer named above has a clan that carries on Xinggong and an art handed down from Wuzi. He can raise a spirit of excellence, and he has long drilled a bold soldiery. He has always set the sturdy troops at ease, and indeed he has come to a leading that guides them step by step. Now the government of a commandery is entrusted to him, to try his capacity for public office. Now that his hour has come to change as the leopard does, let him guard the borders of Longshu well. Ruling the region and bringing order to it, he will surely see it come to something in three years. Offering his loyalty to the state, let him strive to leave the people without grief. Then he shall meet the emperor's reward, and his official honor shall rise higher again. This matter must be sent as a temporary charge of the military and civil affairs of Shuzhou.