The historian says論
1The historian says
史臣曰：漢世西譯遐通，兼途累萬，跨頭痛之山，越繩度之險，生行死徑，身往魂歸。晉氏南移，河、隴敻隔，戎夷梗路，外域天斷。若夫大秦、天竺，迥出西溟，二漢銜役，特艱斯路，而商貨所資，或出交部，汎海陵波，因風遠至。又重峻參差，氏眾非一，殊名詭號，種別類殊，山琛水寶，由茲自出，通犀翠羽之珍，蛇珠火布之異，千名萬品，並世主之所虛心，故舟舶繼路，商使交屬。太祖以南琛不至，遠命師旅，泉浦之捷，威震滄溟，未名之寶，入充府實。夫四夷孔熾，患深自古，蠻、僰殊雜，種眾特繁，依深傍岨，充積畿甸，咫尺華氓，易興狡毒，略財據土，歲月滋深。自元嘉將半，寇慝彌廣，遂盤結數州，搖亂邦邑。於是命將出師，恣行誅討，自江漢以北，廬江以南，搜山盪谷，窮兵罄武，繫頸囚俘，蓋以數百萬計。至於孩年耋齒，執訊所遺，將卒申好殺之憤，干戈窮酸慘之用，雖云積怨，為報亦甚。張奐所云「流血于野，傷和致災。」斯固仁者之言矣。
The historian says: In the time of the Han the interpreters of the west reached far, and the roads ran on for tens of thousands of li. Men crossed the mountain of headaches and passed the peril of the rope crossing. They went out alive on a road that came back dead: the body went and the soul returned. When the house of Jin (晉氏) moved south, the He and the Long were shut off far away, the Rong and the Yi blocked the roads, and the outer regions were sundered as though by heaven. As for Daqin and Tianzhu, they rise far out beyond the western sea. The two Han courts took up such missions, and found this road hard above all others, yet the stock of goods for trade came out at times by way of Jiaozhou, floating over the sea and riding the waves and coming from far off with the wind. Again, the ranges stand one behind another and are uneven, and the tribes are not of one kind. Their names are strange and their titles odd, and their clans and their sorts are all different. The treasures of the mountains and the jewels of the waters come forth from there of themselves: the rarity of the marked rhinoceros horn (通犀) and the kingfisher feather, the strangeness of the serpent pearl and the fire-washed cloth, a thousand names and ten thousand kinds. All of them are what the rulers of the age long for with an empty heart, and so the ships followed one another on the way, and traders and envoys came in a chain. Taizu, because the treasures of the south did not come, gave a command for troops to go far. At the victory of Quanpu (泉浦) his awe shook the blue sea, and treasures that had no name came in to fill the storehouses.
Now the four Yi (四夷) are very fierce, and the trouble from them has been deep since old times. The Man (蠻) and the Bo (僰) are mixed in many kinds, and their tribes are especially many. They lean on deep places and keep beside rugged ones, and they lie heaped up against the royal domain (畿甸). Being a hand's breadth from the people of Hua, they easily raise cunning harm. They seize goods and hold land, and with the months and years it grew deeper. From about the middle of the Yuanjia years the swarm of raiders spread wider, until it coiled and knotted through several provinces and shook and troubled the towns. Then generals were ordered out with troops, and killing and punishment were carried out without restraint. From north of the Jiang and the Han (江漢) to south of Lujiang the mountains were searched and the valleys swept, and the troops and the arms were used to the last. Those bound by the neck and made prisoner are reckoned at some millions. Even to the children of tender years and the old with worn teeth, and to those left over after the questioning: the commanders and the soldiers gave vent to their anger and their love of killing, and spear and shield were put to their bitterest and cruellest use. Though it is said that the grudge had long been piling up, the repayment too was much. What Zhang Huan said, "To spill blood in the field harms the harmony of things and brings down disaster," is truly the word of a benevolent man.