A supplement to the Record of Marvels map of Annam補安南錄異圖記

The four borders of Jiaozhi are set out in detail in the illustrated gazetteer. Yet the district holds many raw Liao and its borders lie near to the several foreign lands, so common talk is gathered a little here, to mark it down in this local record. Annam as a protectorate has twelve commanderies under its circuit and fifty-eight prefectures held by a loose rein. From the protectorate seat east to the southern sea is more than four hundred li, and a mountain runs crosswise a thousand li and further, where deep caves and deep crags are the burrow-homes of the Liao. The Man and the Dan are of six kinds, dwelling scattered like stars; the neighboring foreign lands are twenty-one districts, and the raw Liao under this district are twenty-one bands. By water to the southwest it reaches the countries of Shepo and Dashi, and by land to the northwest it joins the road to the Women's Country and the Wuman, but there have never been post stations and no one can tell the stages of the road, so those who go on foot count the days and set a term, and those who ride the waves read the wind and fix their word. In the twenty-one countries the cocks and dogs pass their sound from one to the next, and what suits them in dress and food is roughly alike. The raw Liao within the district are mostly called Shanti. Some wear their hair loose and carve their bodies, and some pierce the chest and chisel the teeth; their strange speech is a jabber, and their sly looks stare wide. The strangest among them send their heads flying when they lie down and take their drink through the nose, wrap their bodies in leopard skin and cover their forms with tortoise shell, pound tree floss to make a fur coat and weave bamboo thatch to make wings; and in bearing and rearing, husband and wife take the sickness by turns, and when the child is grown, father and son contend for mastery. Though at times an interpreter can get through, their customs have no work of mulberry and silkworm. They weave only narrow cloth of mixed colors and mostly throw on a short-lapelled crossed shirt, and some wear clothes that are not sewn and eat what is not grain. At a death there is no mourning dress, and in marriage there is no go-between; in war they have the ranked blade, and in sickness they have no medicine. They rely firmly on their rough country, and each calls himself a chieftain. From the Han court long ago down to the end of Sui they raised border troubles again and again and put many to the labor of distant campaigns. When General Ma set up his pillar and turned back, the land borders were divided by inches; and after Commander-in-chief Shi overturned the stele and passed on, the corner of the sea was roughly quieted. When the Xiantong years began, the Piaoxin brought forth disaster and the commander lost his discipline, and owls hooted in the land where the kites drop and boars jostled on the road where horses are roped. To break the villains, men longed to strike swiftly at the throat; to save the drowning, they thought only of a hand held out. The late Emperor, since the present Grand Commandant of Huaihai, the Duke of Yan, had spread his power over the great desert and his rule had soaked the upper capital, asked him to go out and hold Longbian. He set himself up with the arts of war, shaved away the tattooed-brows till they broke like eggs, and kept the black-haired folk alive till their flesh was full. With a single wave of his banner he restored the ramparts, and over ten thousand li he pulled the frontier back into place. Every worm was pared away, and no wrong went unstraightened. After that he set the Mother of Lightning and the Duke of Thunder to cut through the road by which the outer lands come to court at Heaven, and the mountain spirits and Ruo of the waters to lay flat the waves of the great ocean that drench the sun. So the spying of the Man toward the north was cut off and the southern garrison duty of the Han army was eased, and then the phoenix brought down an edict of recall and the heron-prowed boat floated on the homeward way. Even the cave Liao and the sea Man were all drunk with his grace and filled with his righteousness, and they cast themselves before the sage's gate from afar and asked to set up a shrine to him while he still lived. From this it is known that where good rule goes, even a strange land can be drawn. Since it has been shown that he would not take horses though they were as many as sheep, then even if the ants were as big as elephants, what is there to fear? This is enough to prove that when the four barbarian peoples at times do not submit, it is because the charges of the nine shepherds have not found the right men. There was Wu Jiang, an administrator of the Rouyuan Army, who once gathered this map and named it the Record of Marvels. His preface says, "Long and keenly □□□ to look on the far foreign lands, I saw strange forms with my own eyes and wrote down with my own hand what happened." That being so, he passes on what is trustworthy by what is trustworthy, and this is what is taken from this. □□□ looked over the earlier words, withdrew, and sighed, saying, "What I hold to be strange is different from what other men hold to be strange." And he said, "Within the six directions, what thing is to be thrown away? As for rat flesh by the ten thousand catty and shrimp whiskers a zhang long, once one knows what the south and the north bring forth, the doubts of old and new are loosed forever, and then that beasts divide by nature into herds and that birds gather by kind in their cries is truly not enough to be called strange." Lately the Grand Commandant, the Duke of Yan, received the grace of the three visits and used the six extraordinary stratagems, bringing the fierce and the stubborn to submit, so that the borders are at peace. Now the sage sovereign inspects the regions and the king of Meng offers his sincerity, not daring to wag the mouth that barks at Yao, and able forever to put away the heart that troubles the central land. All this is because the Duke of Yan took back Jiaozhou and held the commandery of Shu, his power shaking the running goblins and the fleeing sprites, his merit made complete in ramparts of metal and moats of boiling water. This is what is meant by storing up the power of foresight and discerning what has not yet come, so that in a breath yin and yang cannot be fathomed, and at a pointed track gods and spirits run to and fro. Truly it is a case of a man taking the place of Heaven's own work, and this indeed may be called strange. So what was missing is supplied a little, and dared to be left for those who come after. The time was the third year of the kingfisher canopy's progress to Shu.