Dispatch putting An Zairong in charge of the Linhuai command安再榮管臨淮都
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 · 191 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 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.
1An old bear lies in the road, so how shall the cub get past?
This dispatch carries out the decision handed down. Wang Pi of Western Wei led his men to hold off the bandits. He leaned on a white staff, shouted aloud and rebuked them, saying, "An old bear lies in the road. How shall the cub get past?" The enemy saw his awe and his courage, and sure enough took fright and fled of themselves. From this it is known that the name of a fierce general can rob a rebel band of its spirit. The officer named above was skilled early in strategy, and has been tried again and again in devising plans. He once broke into a heavy encirclement and settled the day fighting alone. He may truly be called a man who appears like a spirit and vanishes like a ghost. Is he merely one who shows off turning to the left and drawing to the right? His strength of arm is weaker now, but his brave heart presses on the harder. Facing a task, he can still eat his fill like a young man. Going out to war, how should he wish to eat for nothing? Those crawling stubborn villains raid us and stir up trouble. Troops have been levied in numbers, yet no rare merit has been won. Look to Linhuai. It sits at a vital place. It rests with him to train them with the three commands and rouse them with a single shout, to watch closely for the hour when the enemy is spent and our own side is full, and to bring about hardship first and gain after. Let the old thoroughbred be spared the sigh of lying in his stall, and let no worn-out nag race to the front. The autumn hawk has left the wrist guard, so let no cunning fox find its chance. This matter must be sent as a charge of the Linhuai command.