Dispatch making Zhang Xiong garrison commander of Baisha張雄充白沙鎭將
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.
This dispatch carries out the decision handed down. To climb high one starts low, and that is how the gentleman keeps his first purpose strong. To give up the great and take the small is how the men of old handed down a good name. If only a man can keep his integrity unbroken, then all rests on watching the hour and moving with it. The officer named above holds a righteous courage quietly within, and has stored up deep humility and concord. When he sends out the rules, his government wins a fair report. When he handles the crowd, no angry look is seen in the ranks. Now the new favor has not yet come down, so how can keen troops be at ease? Look to that old ford. It is truly a vital road. The work of the garrison lies there on the riverbank, already at the crossing point of the commissioner's office, so a man of public talent should be lent to it as its warden. Still more, the goods of the market fall to him as well, and they can keep the army supplied. For now lay the arts of war aside, and help to rear the courage that cuts down the water dragon. Wait to meet the phoenix edict, and move on to the separate glory of raising the falcon. This matter must be sent as a temporary charge of the affairs of the Baisha garrison, together with charge of the public business of the market office.