Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 14 — Notices

Dispatch making Lü Yongzhi concurrently chief military commandant of Shanyang呂用之兼管山陽都知兵馬使

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 · 169 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 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.

1Be generous and you win the multitude; be trusted and men give you their charge

牒奉處分。仲尼云寬則得衆。信則任人焉。嘗聆斯語。今見其人。前件官慶襲玉璜。業精金版。遵直道而利有攸往。奉公家而知無不爲。是以晉作新軍。權資處右。齊行勇爵。衆許居先。乃裨察俗之規。動叶安民之策。遂得晨羊罷飮。夜犬停喧。永除奸濫之源。深得撫綏之道。今以屬城多難。散卒無依。窮猿旣切於投林。飛鳥猶思於擇木。群情所附。戎略可嘉。俾安其貿貿然來。實倚其多多益辦。無辭兩役。用展長才。事須兼充山陽軍都知兵馬使。

This dispatch carries out the decision handed down. Confucius said, "Be generous and you win the multitude. Be trusted and men give you their charge." Those words were heard long ago, and now the man himself is seen. The officer named above carries on the blessing of the jade pendant, and his work is skilled in the golden tablets. He follows the straight way, so it profits him to go forward. He serves the public house, and knowing a thing, he leaves nothing undone. Therefore, when Jin raised its new army, he had the standing to hold the right-hand place, and when Qi granted ranks for valor, the crowd allowed him the front. He has helped the rules that look into local custom, and his every move has matched the plans that keep the people at peace. So the morning sheep left off their drinking and the night dogs left off their clamor. He has rooted out for good the source of crooked and lawless dealing, and has fully gained the way of soothing and settling. Now the subject towns have many troubles, and the scattered soldiers have nothing to lean on. The cornered ape is desperate to throw himself into the woods, and the flying bird still thinks of choosing its tree. The hearts of the crowd turn to him, and his grasp of war deserves praise. To settle those who come in their bewilderment, we lean indeed on the man who does the better the more he has to handle. Do not refuse the double duty. Unfold your rare gifts. This matter must be a concurrent appointment as chief military commandant of the Shanyang army.

Interlinear notes 1

Lü Shang, fishing at Panxi, is said to have found a jade pendant and later aided the house of Zhou. The allusion is drawn because the recipient bears the surname Lü. — translator