Enfeoffment封建第八
貞觀元年，封中書令房玄齡為邗國公，兵部尚書杜如晦為蔡國公，吏部尚書長孫無忌為齊國公，並為第一等，食邑實封一千三百戶。皇從父淮安王神通上言：「義旗初起，臣率兵先至，今玄齡等刀筆之人，功居第一，臣竊不服。」太宗曰：「國家大事，惟賞與罰。賞當其勞，無功者自退。罰當其罪，為惡者咸懼。則知賞罰不可輕行也。今計勛行賞，玄齡等有籌謀帷幄，畫定社稷之功，所以漢之蕭何，雖無汗馬，指蹤推轂，故得功居第一。叔父於國至親，誠無愛惜，但以不可緣私濫與勛臣同賞矣！」由是諸功臣自相謂曰：「陛下以至公，賞不私其親，吾屬何可妄訴。」初，高祖舉宗正籍，弟侄、再從、三從孩童已上封王者數十人。至是，太宗謂群臣曰：「自兩漢已降，惟封子及兄弟，其疏遠者，非有大功，如漢之賈、澤，並不得受封。若一切封王，多給力役，乃至勞苦萬姓，以養已之親屬。」於是宗室先封郡王其間無功者，皆降為縣公。
In the first year of Zhenguan, Fang Xuanling, the director of the Secretariat, was enfeoffed as duke of the state of Han; Du Ruhui, the minister of war, as duke of the state of Cai; and Zhangsun Wuji, the minister of personnel, as duke of the state of Qi. All three were set in the first rank and given a fief of one thousand three hundred households in actual grant. Li Shentong, the prince of Huai'an and the emperor's uncle, spoke up:
"When the righteous banner first rose, your servant led troops and came first. Now Xuanling and the others, men who hold the brush and the knife, stand first in merit. Your servant privately cannot submit to it."
Taizong said:
"The great affairs of a state are only reward and punishment. When reward matches the labor, those without merit withdraw of themselves. When punishment matches the crime, those who do evil all grow afraid. So it is known that reward and punishment cannot be carried out lightly. Now, in counting merit and giving reward, Xuanling and the others have the merit of laying plans within the tent and drawing the lines that settled the altars of the state. This is why Xiao He of the Han, though he had no horse wet with sweat, pointed out the tracks and pushed the chariot, and so came to stand first in merit. My uncle is closest of all to the state, and truly there is nothing I begrudge you. It is only that I cannot lean on private feeling and rashly give you the same reward as the ministers who have merit."
Because of this the men of merit said among themselves:
"His Majesty rewards with the utmost fairness and does not favor his own kin. How can we complain rashly?"
Earlier, Gaozu had taken up the registers of the imperial clan and enfeoffed as princes several tens of men, down to the children among his younger brothers, his nephews, and his second and third cousins. By this time Taizong said to his assembled ministers:
"From the two Han dynasties onward, only sons and brothers were enfeoffed. Those distant and thin in kinship received no fief at all unless they had great merit, as with Liu Jia and Liu Ze of the Han. If all were enfeoffed as princes, much hard corvee would be laid on them, and it would come at last to wearing out and grieving the ten thousand families in order to keep one's own kin."
So among those of the imperial clan who had earlier been enfeoffed as commandery princes, all who had no merit were lowered to district dukes.
貞觀十一年，太宗以周封子弟，八百餘年，秦罷諸侯，二世而滅，呂後欲危劉氏，終賴宗室獲安，封建親賢，當是子孫長久之道。乃定制，以子弟荊州都督荊王元景、安州都督吳王恪等二十一人，又以功臣司空趙州刺史長孫無忌、尚書左僕射宋州刺史房玄齡等一十四人，並為世襲刺史。禮部侍郎李百藥奏論駮世封事曰：
In the eleventh year of Zhenguan, Taizong considered that the Zhou had enfeoffed their sons and younger brothers and lasted more than eight hundred years, that the Qin had done away with the feudal lords and perished in the second generation, and that when Empress Lu meant to endanger the house of Liu it was the imperial clan that peace was owed to in the end. He held that to enfeoff and set up his kin and the worthy was the way for sons and grandsons to endure long. So he fixed a rule, and made hereditary prefects of twenty-one men among his sons and younger brothers, such as Li Yuanjing, the prince of Jing and governor-general of Jingzhou, and Li Ke, the prince of Wu and governor-general of Anzhou, and of fourteen men among his ministers of merit, such as Zhangsun Wuji, the minister of works and prefect of Zhaozhou, and Fang Xuanling, the left vice director of the Department of State and prefect of Songzhou. Li Baiyao, the vice minister of rites, sent up a memorial arguing against hereditary enfeoffment:
臣聞經國庇民，王者之常制；尊主安上，人情之大方。思聞理定之規，以弘長世之業，萬古不易，百慮同歸。然命歷有餘促之殊，邦家有理亂之異。遐觀載籍，論之詳矣。咸云周過其數，秦不及期，存亡之理，在於郡國。周氏以鑒夏、殷之長久，遵皇王之並建，維城磐石，深根固本，雖王綱弛廢，而枝幹相持，故使逆節不生，宗祀不絕。秦氏背師古之訓，棄先王之道，踐華恃險，罷侯置守，子弟無尺土之邑，兆庶罕共治之憂，故一夫號呼而七廟隳圮。
Your servant has heard that to order the state and shelter the people is the constant institution of a king, and that to honor the ruler and set the one above at ease is the great bent of human feeling. To hear the rule that settles good order, and so to widen the work of a lasting age, does not change in ten thousand ages, and a hundred deliberations come round to the same place. Yet the span Heaven allots differs in being ample or cut short, and states differ in being well ordered or in disorder.
Looking far back into the old records, this has been argued in detail. All say that the Zhou went past their reckoned years and the Qin fell short of theirs, and that the principle of surviving or perishing lies in whether there are commanderies or enfeoffed states. The house of Zhou took the long endurance of the Xia and the Yin as its mirror and followed the law by which the august kings set up fiefs together. They bound the walls and made a bedrock of them, deepening the root and firming the trunk. So even when the king's net slackened and fell away, branch and trunk held each other up, no rebellious joint arose, and the sacrifices of the ancestral temple were not broken off. The house of Qin turned its back on the teaching that takes the old for its master and cast away the way of the former kings. It trod on Mount Hua and trusted in its steepness, did away with the feudal lords and set up governors. Its sons and younger brothers had not a foot of land for a fief, and the multitude of people rarely had the care that comes of ruling together. So one man raised a shout and the seven ancestral shrines fell in ruins.
臣以為自古皇王，君臨宇內，莫不受命上玄，冊名帝錄，締構遇興王之運，殷憂屬啟聖之期。雖魏武攜養之資，漢高徒役之賤，非止意有覬覦，推之亦不能去也。若其獄訟不歸，菁華已竭，雖帝堯之光被四表，大舜之上齊七政，非止情存揖讓，守之亦不可焉！以放勛、重華之德，尚不能克昌厥後。是知祚之長短，必在於天時，政或興衰，有關於人事。隆周卜世三十，卜年七百，雖淪胥之道斯極，而文、武之器尚存，斯龜鼎之祚，已懸定於杳冥也。至使南征不返，東遷避逼，禋祀闕如，郊畿不守，此乃陵夷之漸，有累於封建焉。暴秦運距閏餘，數終百六。受命之主，德異禹、湯，繼世之君，才非啟、誦。借使李斯、王綰之輩盛開四履，將閭、子嬰之徒俱啟千乘，豈能逆帝子之勃興，抗龍顏之基命者也！
Your servant thinks that from of old, when an august king has come to rule within the compass of the world, there has been none who did not receive his mandate from the dark heaven above and have his name written in the register of emperors. To bind and build, a man must meet the fortune of a king's rising, and deep anxiety attaches to the season when a sage is opened out. Though Emperor Wu of Wei had only the resources of a house that took him in and reared him, and Gaozu of Han the lowness of a man at corvee labor, it was not only that their intent held a covetous eye on the throne: even when it was pushed upon them they could not have declined it.
If lawsuits no longer come to a ruler and his flowering is already spent, then though the light of Emperor Yao covered the four quarters and the brightness of the great Shun set the seven stars in order above, it would not only be that their feeling held to yielding the throne: even wishing to keep it, they could not. With the virtue of Fangxun and Chonghua they still could not make their line flourish after them. From this it is known that the length or shortness of a dynasty's fortune lies of necessity in the seasons of Heaven, while the rise or decline of government has to do with the affairs of men.
The flourishing Zhou were divined thirty generations and seven hundred years. Though the way of sinking together had run to its end, the vessels of Kings Wen and Wu were still there, and so this fortune of the tortoise and the cauldron had already been fixed and hung up in the unseen. That it came to a southern campaign from which there was no return, a move east to flee oppression, sacrifices left undone and the land about the capital unheld, was a gradual crumbling away, and not a thing bound up with enfeoffment.
The cruel Qin had a fortune that stopped at the leftover of a leap month and a reckoning that ended at one hundred and six. The lord who received the mandate differed in virtue from Yu and Tang, and the rulers who continued the line had not the talent of Qi and Song. Suppose the likes of Li Si and Wang Wan had opened wide the lands of the four quarters, and the likes of Jianglu and Ziying had each been given a thousand chariots. How could they have gone against the sudden rising of the emperor's son, or stood up to the mandate on which the dragon countenance founded itself?
然則得失成敗，各有由焉。而著述之家，多守常轍，莫不情忘今古，理蔽澆淳，欲以百王之季，行三代之法，天下五服之內，盡封諸侯，王畿千里之間，俱為采地。是則以結繩之化行虞、夏之朝，用象刑之典治劉、曹之末，紀綱弛紊，斷可知焉。鍥船求劍，未見其可；膠柱成文，彌多所惑。徒知問鼎請隧，有懼霸王之師；白馬素車，無復藩維之援。不悟望夷之釁，未堪羿、浞之災；既罹高貴之殃，寧異申、繒之酷。此乃欽明昏亂，自革安危，固非守宰公侯，以成興廢。且數世之後，王室浸微，始自藩屏，化為仇敵。家殊俗，國異政，強陵弱，眾暴寡，疆場彼此，幹戈侵伐。狐駘之役，女子盡髽；崤陵之師，只輪不反。斯蓋略舉一隅，其餘不可勝數。陸士衡方規規然云：「嗣王委其九鼎，兇族據其天邑，天下晏然，以治待亂。」何斯言之謬也！而設官分職，任賢使能，以循良之才，膺共治之寄，刺舉分竹，何世無人？至使地或呈祥，天不愛寶，民稱父母，政比神明。曹元首方區區然稱：「與人共其樂者人必憂其憂，與人同其安者人必拯其危。」豈容以為侯伯則同其安危，任之牧宰則殊其憂樂？何斯言之妄也！
That being so, gaining and losing, succeeding and failing, each has that from which it comes. Yet those who write books mostly keep to the old wheel ruts. In feeling they forget old times and present times alike, and in principle they are blind to what is thin and what is thick. At the tail of a hundred kings they would carry out the law of the Three Dynasties: they would enfeoff the whole of the five zones under heaven with feudal lords, and make the thousand li about the king's capital all into appanages. This is to work the rule of the knotted cord in the courts of Yu and Xia, and to govern the last days of the houses of Liu and Cao with the statutes that punished by painted robes. That the net of order would slacken and fall into confusion can be known for certain.
To notch the boat and look for the sword is not a thing one can see the good of, and to glue the peg fast and make a text of it only adds to bewilderment. Such men know only that in asking the weight of the cauldron and in begging for a tunneled approach there was fear of the armies of the hegemon-kings, and that with the white horse and the plain carriage there was no longer the help of a hedge and a wall. They do not grasp that the breach at the Wangyi Palace could not bear a disaster such as Yi and Zhuo brought, or that the calamity that met the duke of Gaogui differed in nothing from the cruelty of the marquis of Shen and the state of Zeng. Here it is the ruler's own brightness or blind disorder that of itself divides safety from danger; it is truly not governors and prefects, dukes and marquises, that make a rising or a falling.
Again, after several generations the royal house grows steadily weaker, and those who were hedges at first turn into enemies. House differs from house in custom and state from state in government; the strong bully the weak and the many are violent to the few; on this border and on that, spear and shield invade and strike. In the campaign at Hutai the women all cut their hair and bound it up; of the army at Mount Xiao not one wheel came back. This is to raise up one corner only, and the rest cannot be counted.
Yet Lu Shiheng said, pitifully rigid, "The heir king threw away his nine cauldrons and a savage clan took his heavenly capital, and yet all under heaven was at peace, awaiting disorder with good order." How wrong these words are!
Again, offices are set out and duties divided, the worthy are entrusted and the able employed, men of upright and good talent take up the charge of ruling together, and prefects and governors are set in place. In what age have there been no men for it? It has gone so far that the earth has sometimes shown auspicious signs and Heaven has not grudged its treasures, that the people have called them father and mother and their government has been likened to the spirits. Yet Cao Yuanshou declared, in his small way, "He who shares his joy with others will surely have others worry over his worry, and he who shares his safety with others will surely have others pull him out of his danger." How can it be allowed that being a feudal lord or an earl means sharing safety and danger, while being charged as a governor means that worry and joy are different things? How reckless these words are!
封君列國，藉其門資，忘其先業之艱難，輕其自然之崇貴，莫不世增淫虐，代益驕侈。離宮別館，切漢淩雲，或刑人力而將盡，或召諸侯而共樂。陳靈則君臣悖禮，共侮徵舒；衛宣則父子聚麀，終誅壽、朔。乃云為己思治，豈若是乎？內外群官，選自朝廷，擢士庶以任之，澄水鏡以鑒之，年勞優其階品，考績明其黜陟。進取事切，砥礪情深，或俸祿不入私門，妻子不之官舍。班條之貴，食不舉火；剖符之重，居惟飲水。南陽太守，弊布裹身；萊蕪縣長，凝塵生甑。專云為利圖物，何其爽歟！總而言之，爵非世及，用賢之路斯廣；民無定主，附下之情不固。此乃愚知所辨，安可惑哉？至如滅國弒君，亂常幹紀，春秋二百年間，略無寧歲。次睢咸秩，遂用玉帛之君；魯道有蕩，每等衣裳之會。縱使西漢哀、平之際，東洛桓、靈之時，下吏淫暴，必不至此。為政之理，可以一言蔽焉。
The lords enfeoffed with states lean on the resources of their lineage. They forget how hard the work of their forebears was and hold lightly the height and honor that came to them of itself, and there is not one of them who does not add lewdness and cruelty generation by generation, and arrogance and extravagance age by age. Detached palaces and separate lodges touch the sky and rise above the clouds; some use up the people's strength to the last, and some call in the feudal lords to take their pleasure together. Duke Ling of Chen broke the rites with his ministers and joined them in humiliating Xia Zhengshu; Duke Xuan of Wey took the same woman as his son did, and in the end Shou and Shuo were put to death. And then it is said that such men think of good rule for their own sake. How can it be so?
The many officials within and without are chosen by the court. Men are picked from the gentry and the commons and charged with office; they are held up to a clear mirror and examined; their grade and rank are made ample by years and labor; their demotion and promotion are made plain by a review of merit. Their care to advance is keen and their feeling for grinding and polishing is deep, so that some take no salary into their private house and some keep wife and children out of the official lodging. In the honored seat where the statutes are set out, a man may light no fire to cook; in the weighty post where the tally was split, his living may be water and nothing more. The governor of Nanyang wrapped his body in worn cloth; the magistrate of Laiwu had caked dust growing in his steamer. And yet it is said that they do nothing but scheme after things for gain. How far from the truth this is!
To say it all together: when rank does not pass down the generations, the road for using worthy men is wide; when the people have no fixed master, the feeling that attaches them to those below is not firm. This is a thing the foolish and the wise alike can tell apart. How can there be any confusion in it?
As for wiping out states and killing rulers, throwing the constant bonds into disorder and breaking the net of order, in the two hundred years of the Spring and Autumn there was hardly a peaceful year. At the sacrifice at Cisui they went so far as to use for the victim a ruler who bore jade and silk; the way of Lu was shaken, and there were only meetings where robes brushed robes. Even in the days of Emperors Ai and Ping of the Western Han, or the time of Emperors Huan and Ling of Eastern Luo, the lewdness and cruelty of the lower officials surely did not reach this. The principle of governing can be covered in a single word.
伏惟陛下握紀御天，膺期啟聖，救億兆之焚溺，掃氛祲於寰區。創業垂統，配二儀以立德；發號施令，妙萬物而為言。獨照神衷，永懷前古。將復五等而修舊制，建萬國以親諸侯。竊以漢、魏以還，餘風之弊未盡；勛華既往，至公之道斯乖。況晉氏失馭，宇縣崩離；後魏乘時，華夷雜處。重以關河分阻，吳、楚懸隔，習文者學長短從橫之術，習武者盡幹戈戰爭之心，畢為狙詐之階，彌長澆浮之俗。開皇在運，因藉外家。驅御群英，任雄猜之數；坐移明運，非克定之功。年逾二紀，民不見德。及大業嗣立，世道交喪，一時人物，掃地將盡。雖天縱神武，削平寇虐，兵威不息，勞止未康。
Prostrate, your servant considers that Your Majesty grasps the net of order and drives Heaven, that you answered the season and opened out sagehood, that you saved the myriad people from burning and drowning and swept the baleful vapors from the whole region. You founded the work and handed down the line, matching the two forms in setting up virtue; you issued call and command, making all things wondrous and taking that for your word. Alone you shine with a divine heart and think long on the ancient past, and now you would restore the five degrees and repair the old institution, setting up ten thousand states and drawing the feudal lords near.
Your servant privately considers that since the Han and the Wei the ills of the lingering custom are not yet spent, and that since Yao and Shun passed away the way of utmost fairness has gone awry. Still more so when the house of Jin lost the reins and the whole land broke apart, and the Later Wei rode on the season so that Chinese and barbarian dwelt mixed together. On top of this the Pass and the River divided and blocked the land, and Wu and Chu were far cut off, so that those who studied letters learned the arts of long and short, of vertical and horizontal, and those who studied arms spent all their hearts on fighting with spear and shield. All of it became a stair to cunning and deceit, and made thin and floating custom grow the more.
The Kaihuang years rode upon fortune and leaned on the house of a consort's kin. In driving and using the host of heroes they used the arts of ferocity and suspicion; they shifted a bright fortune while sitting still, and it was not the merit of conquering and settling. For more than two cycles of twelve years the people saw no virtue. When the Daye reign succeeded to the throne, the way of the age fell to ruin along with it, and the men of that time were swept from the earth almost to the last. Though Heaven granted you a divine prowess and you cut down and pacified the cruelty of the brigands, the might of arms did not rest, and the toil has not yet come to peace.
自陛下仰順聖慈，嗣膺寶歷，情深致治，綜覈前王。雖至道無名，言象所紀，略陳梗概，實所庶幾。愛敬烝烝，勞而不倦，大舜之孝也。訪安內豎，親嘗御膳，文王之德也。每憲司讞罪，尚書奏獄，大小必察，枉直咸舉，以斷趾之法，易大辟之刑，仁心隱惻，貫徹幽顯，大禹之泣辜也。正色直言，虛心受納，不簡鄙訥，無棄芻蕘，帝堯之求諫也。弘獎名教，勸勵學徒，既擢明經於青紫，將升碩儒於卿相，聖人之善誘也。群臣以宮中暑濕，寢饍或乖，請移御高明，營一小閣。遂惜十家之產，竟抑子來之願，不吝陰陽之感，以安卑陋之居。頃歲霜儉，普天饑饉。喪亂甫爾，倉廩空虛。聖情矜湣，勤加賑恤，竟無一人流離道路，猶且食惟藜藿，樂徹簨虡。言必淒動，貌成臒瘦．公旦喜於重譯。文命矜其即敘．陛下每見四夷款附，萬里歸仁，必退思進省，凝神動慮，恐妄勞中國，以求遠方，不藉萬古之英聲，以存一時之茂實。心切憂勞，志絕遊幸，每旦視朝，聽受無倦，智周於萬物，道濟於天下。罷朝之後，引進名臣，討論是非，備盡肝膈，惟及政事，更無異辭。才日昃，必命才學之士，賜以清閑，高談典籍，雜以文詠，間以玄言，乙夜忘疲，中宵不寐。此之四道，獨邁往初，斯實生民以來，一人而已。弘茲風化，昭示四方，信可以期月之間，彌綸天壤。而淳粹尚阻，浮詭未移，此由習之久，難以卒變。請待斫雕成器，以質代文，刑措之教一行，登封之禮云畢，然後定疆理之制，議山河之賞，未為晚焉。《易》稱：「天地盈虛，與時消息，況於人乎？」美哉斯言也。
Since Your Majesty looked up and followed a sage compassion and succeeded to the precious calendar, your feeling for reaching good rule has been deep, and you have gathered and sifted the kings before you. Though the utmost way has no name and is not a thing to be set down in word and image, if your servant lays out its rough outline, you have truly come near it.
Your love and reverence are thick, and you are not weary though you toil: this is the filial piety of the great Shun. You send inner attendants to ask after health and taste the imperial food yourself: this is the virtue of King Wen. Whenever the board of justice reports a crime and the Department of State submits a case, you examine it without fail, great or small, and bring out crooked and straight alike, and you have put the law of cutting off a foot in place of the punishment of beheading; your benevolent heart grieves in secret and pierces through the hidden and the manifest: this is the great Yu weeping over a criminal. You make men set their faces straight and speak plainly, and you empty your heart to take it in, not passing over the low and the halting in speech, not casting away the words of men who cut fodder: this is Emperor Yao seeking counsel. You greatly praise name and teaching and urge on the bands of students; already you have raised men learned in the classics to high office, and you will lift great scholars to be ministers of state: this is the sage's good leading.
Your assembled ministers said that the palace was hot and damp and that your sleep and your food would sometimes suffer, and asked you to move to a high, bright place, and would have built one small pavilion. But in the end you begrudged the property of ten households and held down their wish to come running like sons, and you did not grudge the hurt of shade and sun but dwelt at ease in a low and cramped place.
In the past few years frost brought lean harvests and there was famine under the whole sky. Ruin and disorder had only just ceased, and the granaries were empty. In your sage feeling you pitied them and diligently added relief, so that in the end not one man was adrift on the roads. And still what you ate was only goosefoot and bean leaves, and you put away even the frames of your music. Your words always moved men to sorrow, and your face grew thin.
The Duke of Zhou rejoiced that men came through a double interpreter, and Yu prided himself on their following in order. Yet whenever Your Majesty sees the barbarians of the four quarters come with sincere allegiance and ten thousand li turn to your benevolence, you always draw back to think and step forward to examine yourself; you gather your spirit and stir your thoughts, fearing to wear out the central land for nothing in order to seek the far quarters, and you will not lean on a fine name for ten thousand ages in order to hold a flourishing substance of the hour.
Your heart is keen with care and toil and your will has cut off pleasure trips. Each morning you hold court and are never weary of hearing and receiving, so that your wisdom reaches round all things and your way saves all under heaven. When court is over you draw in your famous ministers and weigh right and wrong with them, laying bare all that is within, touching on government alone and never on any other matter. When the sun has just passed noon you always summon men of talent and learning and grant them a quiet hour, and you speak high of the classics, mixing in writing and verse and interposing dark sayings, so that at the second watch you forget your weariness and at midnight you do not sleep.
These four ways of yours alone go beyond all former times; truly, since the people came to be, there has been one man and no more. If you widen this custom and teaching and show it plainly to the four quarters, it can truly spread through heaven and earth within a month. Yet what is thick and pure is still blocked and what is floating and false has not yet shifted, because it has long been the habit and is hard to change all at once.
Your servant asks you to wait until the carving is pared away and the vessel made plain, until substance takes the place of ornament; when the teaching that sets punishments aside has once been carried out and the rites of ascending to make the offering are said to be done, then to fix the institution for ordering the borders and to weigh the rewards of mountain and river will not be late. The Book of Changes says, "Even the fullness and emptiness of heaven and earth wane and wax with the seasons. How much more a man?" Beautiful are these words.
中書舍人馬周又上疏曰：
Ma Zhou, the drafter in the Secretariat, also sent up a memorial:
伏見詔書令宗室勛賢作鎮藩部，貽厥子孫，嗣守其政，非有大故，無或黜免。臣竊惟陛下封植之者，誠愛之重之，欲其緒裔承守，與國無疆。可則？以堯、舜之父，猶有朱、均之子？況下此以還，而欲以父取兒，恐失之遠矣。儻有孩童嗣職，萬一驕逸，則兆庶被其殃，而國家受其敗。政欲絕之也，則子文之理猶在；政欲留之也，而欒黡之惡已彰。與其毒害於見存之百姓，則寧使割恩於已亡之一臣，明矣。然則鄉之所謂愛之者，乃適所以傷之也。臣謂宜賦以茅土，疇其戶邑，必有材行，隨器方授，則翰翮非強，亦可以獲免尤累。昔漢光武不任功臣以吏事，所以終全其世者，良由得其術也。願陛下深思其宜，使夫得奉大恩，而子孫終其福祿也。
Prostrate, your servant sees that by edict you have set the imperial clan and the worthy men of merit to hold garrisons in the border districts, handing this down to their sons and grandsons to guard that government in succession, with no demotion or removal unless there is great cause.
Your servant privately considers that what Your Majesty has planted and set up comes truly of loving them and holding them weighty, wishing their line and their offspring to carry it on and guard it, endless as the state itself. Yet how is it? Even fathers like Yao and Shun had sons like Danzhu and Shangjun. Still more, coming down below them, if you would take the son by the father, your servant fears the loss will be far.
If a child should succeed to the post and be arrogant and idle by any chance, then the multitude of people take the harm of it and the state receives the ruin of it. If by government you would cut him off, the good rule of Ziwen is still there; if by government you would keep him, the evil of Luan Yan is already plain. Rather than poison and harm the people now living, it is better to cut away the favor shown to one minister already dead. This is clear. That being so, what was called loving them a moment ago is just the thing that hurts them.
Your servant says that it would be right to grant them the rush and the earth and to requite them with households and towns, but that office should be bestowed according to the vessel where there is talent and conduct. Then, though their wing feathers be not strong, they may still escape fault and blame. Long ago Emperor Guangwu of the Han did not charge his ministers of merit with the business of office, and the reason he kept their houses whole to the end was truly that he had found the right way of it. Your servant wishes Your Majesty to think deeply on what is fitting here, so that these men may receive your great grace and their sons and grandsons enjoy their blessing and their emolument to the end.
太宗並嘉納其言。於是竟罷子弟及功臣世襲刺史。
Taizong praised the words of both and took them in. So in the end he gave up making hereditary prefects of his sons and younger brothers and of the ministers of merit.