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24. When the Rebels Withdrew, Shown to the Officials, with Preface | Yuan Jie

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English translation

In the guimao year the rebels of Xiyuan entered Daozhou, burning, killing and plundering until almost nothing was left, and then withdrew. The next year they took Yongzhou and Shaozhou, but pulled back without touching this prefecture's border.

This is the prose preface. Two sentences fix the time, the place and the course of events, and only then does the poem begin to speak.

Was it that our strength could hold them off? It was only that they pitied us. Why then do the commissioners harden themselves to press the levies? So I have written this poem to show the officials.

The last sentence of the preface names the purpose: it is written for the tax collectors to read. The poem's anger starts here.

In former days I met with peace, and lived twenty years in the hills and woods.

The opening words cut time back to the past. Twenty years is the length of his retreat before office, laid out first so that the "now" later has something to be measured against.

The spring's source was in my courtyard, the caves and gullies faced my door.

Both lines are about position: the things were right at hand, not to be sought. The good of retreat is written as placement rather than as a state of mind.

The land tax had a fixed term, and one could still sleep with the sun already high.

This couplet carries the weight of the poem: what marks peace is not anything else but that taxes had a limit. The late hour follows from the previous line — with the levy settled, sleep comes easily.

Then suddenly the world changed, and for several years I was close to the war banners.

The word for sudden will not join on to the calm of the six lines before, and it is meant not to. From here the poet's own life is counted as part of the disorder.

Now I have come to govern this prefecture, and the mountain people are in turmoil again.

"Now" answers "in former days", and the pair splits the poem in two. He had been in office two months when the trouble came.

The town was small and the rebels did not slaughter it; the people were poor, and they took pity.

This couplet is the poem's mechanism: what saved Daozhou was not the government's force but the rebels' mercy. By this point the officials have already lost a step.

So the neighbouring prefectures fell, and this one alone was preserved.

The words for "alone" and "preserved" lift Daozhou out of its neighbours. The more it looks like luck, the heavier the question put to the officials a few lines later.

The commissioners who carry the emperor's orders — are they not worse than the rebels?

This question is the poem's frontal attack. Setting officials and rebels on the same scale, it asks which of them kept any human feeling.

And now those who collect the levies press the people as if over a fire.

The image is concrete: not a cold figure on paper, but men at the door demanding payment that cannot wait a day.

Who would cut off a man's life to be called worthy of his time?

The phrase for "worthy of the time" is sarcasm. Officials were then judged largely on whether the taxes came in whole, and he takes that honour apart in front of the reader.

I think of casting away my credentials and poling my own boat with a bamboo staff.

Discarding the tally is resigning; taking up the pole is going fishing. One action throws something off and the other takes something up, two ends of the same decision.

I would take my family where fish and grain are, and grow old by the rivers and lakes.

The poem ends on a place rather than a mood. Fish and grain are food, the riverside is where one lives; both are plain and physical.

赏析 · Commentary

序先把账算清 · The Preface Settles the Account

这首诗的序不是交代背景用的客套，它是全诗的论据。时间、地点、结局排得很紧：贼烧杀而去，第二年破了两州，到这个州却退了。最后一句下断语：不是官军有力，是贼可怜他们。有了这句，诗里再问「使臣岂不如贼」，就不是发牢骚，是拿着序里的事实来对账。

The preface is not a courtesy setting out background; it is the poem's evidence. Time, place and outcome are laid down tightly: the rebels burned and killed and went away, the next year they broke two prefectures, and at this one they turned back. The last sentence draws the conclusion — not our strength, but their pity. With that in place, the later question about whether the commissioners are worse than the rebels is not a complaint but a reckoning against facts already on the page.

拿贼来量官 · Measuring Officials Against Rebels

从「城小贼不屠」到「岂不如贼焉」，元结做的是一个对照：被骂作贼的人因为「人贫伤可怜」放过了这座城，而奉王命来的人不肯放过。「伤可怜」三个字用得直，写的是看见别人受苦而心里不好受。官在诗里不是被打成坏人，是被比下去。这个比法对写诗的人自己也是官，说出口要费些力气。

From the line about the small town to the question about the commissioners, Yuan Jie sets up one comparison: men called rebels let the city go because the people were poor and it moved them, while men carrying the emperor's orders would not. The phrase about being moved is plain — it says someone saw suffering and it hurt to see. The officials are not made into villains; they are simply outdone. The man writing this was himself an official, and saying it cost him something.

「时世贤」是句反话 · "Worthy of the Time" Is Sarcasm

「谁能绝人命，以作时世贤」是问句，答案是没有人该这样，可当时偏有人这样做。唐制考核地方官，赋税收齐了就是能吏，「贤」字本来是好话，元结把它按在「绝人命」前面，同一个词就成了罪状。他没有展开骂，只把这两样东西并排一放，让读者自己对。全诗的判断就在这里，比最后说归隐更有分量。

"Who would cut off a man's life to be called worthy of his time" is a question whose answer is nobody should, and yet people were doing it. Under Tang practice a prefect who brought in the full levy was counted capable; "worthy" is a word of praise, and putting it right after cutting off lives turns the same word into a charge. He does not expand into abuse, only sets the two things side by side and lets the reader match them. This is where the poem's judgement sits, and it weighs more than the retirement at the end.

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