Tangxi County Gazetteer 1931 ed.

17.23a-24a

Minister of Justice Lu Yu (1409-1489)

Inscription for the Stele Commemorating the Virtuous Administration of Lord Song

The nation creates prefectures and divides them into counties just like the arrangement of stars or chess pieces. Because at the juncture of Wu, Qu, and Chu prefectures the people were wild and cruel, rarely harmonious and compliant. The officials reported this and it was ordered to pare off the corners of four counties, Longyou in Qu, Suichang in Chu, and Jinhua and Lanxi in Wu to create a county to be named Tangxi. In this place the trees are many and the people few, there are the lairs of bandits and robbers and the dens of tigers and wolves. The Ministry of Personnel should select the person who ought to be the magistrate. Minister of Personnel Yao said: I have the right man. Song Yue from Wei was formerly a talented magistrate of Tang County, he is the only one for the job.

His Lordship took his orders and came. The populace was still set in their old ways, and when summoned they did not come. His Lordship instructed them with principle, moved them by sincerity and restrained them by law. As for those who violated morals and destroyed righteousness, and those who until the last did not reform, he swiftly punished and chastised them, without mercy. Therefore people were awed by his authority and felt gratitude for his kindness, so that what he ordered was put into practice and what he forbade was stopped. His Lordship then assembled the people and made a proclamation on the matter of building the county offices. The people heard of it and gathered harmoniously. They hastened to serve and toiled hard, none daring to fall behind. His Lordship was poorly clothed and on a meager diet; he gathered workmen and assembled building materials, beginning with building the county offices and the official residence, next the school, next the altars and shrines. As for the markets and wells, the streets and roads, one after another they were opened. It was a brilliant renewal. At that all the provincial intendants were surprised and filled with praise.

His Lordship also held that the populace was the basis of the state, and that if they were exhausted, then the basis was harmed, and so he memorialized requesting reduction of taxes and corvée for five years. And since food was heaven to the populace, he publicly and sincerely prayed to the drought deity and it rained in response, and the farmers had their harvest. The tigers and wolves and bandits and robbers of the past were all as if transformed; they hid away and ran off. The populace within the county borders was in a state of contented peace.

He also decided matters intelligently and effectively, his courtroom had no held-over files, and the jail had no wrongly imprisoned persons. At the time auspicious millet was produced in Qinyang – there were one hundred stalks with two heads, even as many as eight or nine heads – and the next year the garden behind the city offices also produced several tens of such stalks. The elders gather to look; they thought that since this millet had been produced in the present but not in the past that it must be an auspicious sign brought about by harmonious matter-energy. Was this brought about by His wise Lordship? His Lordship humbly did not claim credit. In my view "fine crops and forked heads of wheat" were all caused by good governance and virtuous administration in antiquity. His Lordship's virtuous administration was excellent. The growth of auspicious millet is as wondrous as "fine crops and forked heads of wheat" and will at some future date shine in history. His Lordship will also be a model of good governance for a hundred generations.

Recently when I was at court, whenever I met Senior Grand Secretary Shang or Minister of Personnel Yao they told me of His Lordship's wisdom, praising him ceaselessly. These two gentlemen neighbor Tangxi and thus know it in greatest detail. I have now retired and returned home. The populace of Tang sings odes of praise to Lord Song and wishes to engrave them on stone so that they will last into the future. Having a student-teacher relationship with the elder Mr. Meng Mengjiao he called on me to do the text for the Stele Commemorating the Virtuous Administration of Lord Song and to end it with verse:

The prefecture, the county,

Are established for the people.

The prefect, the magistrate,

Are teachers and leader of the people.

In the case of Tangxi,

Remote and desolate.

To create a county here,

An uncommon achievement.

There was the magistrate Song,

Sent by the Son of Heaven.

Working all day, thinking all night,

He devoted himself to the work of the dynasty.

The buildings rose up,

The people were glad to help.

He was not satisfying his own desires,

He was being a model for all the county.

People pitied his labors,

His Lordship did not quit.

He said instead: In accomplishing something,

What matters is a good start.

Heaven observed this sincerity,

And nature responded.

What is to be feared is not doing good,

When done it will be noticed.

It is this hard stone that

Expresses the people's reward for his virtue.

The shining light of virtuous administration,

Will not cease for a thousand years.

Trans. P. K. Bol April 2003

Shang Lu

Yao Gui 1414-73