In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

8 Wu Bao’an Abandons His Family to Ransom His Friend Men of old made friends of the heart; Men of today know friends but by face. Friends of the heart share life and death; Friends by face share not poverty. The thoroughfares teem with men on horses; Social visits go on with never a pause. The host brings out his wife to the guests;1 Toasts go around with brotherly goodwill. But a clash of interests, let alone true peril, Suffices to turn friendships sour. Consider instead Yang and Zuo2 of yore, Still praised in the annals, friends unto death. The above lyric poem, titled “On Friendship,” laments modern men’s treachery and the lack of the true spirit of friendship. When passing around the wine cups, they can be as cordial as brothers, but, at the slightest conflict of interests, they turn their backs on each other. Truly, wine-and-meat brothers are to be had in the thousands; a true friend in distress is nowhere to be found. (This is particularly true of Suzhou natives. How detestable! How absurd!) There are also those who are brothers in the morning but enemies by evening. Scarcely have they put down their wine cups and walked out the door before they turn toward each other with bow and arrow drawn. Tao Yuanming’s expressed wish to break o all friendships,3 Ji Shuye’s letter rejecting a friendly o er,4 and Liu Xiaobiao’s essay “On the Severing of All Relationships ”5 all were prompted by indignation at the deplorable morals of their times. I shall now propose to tell of two friends who, never having seen each other but drawn together by a similar sense of loyalty, went to each other’s rescue in adversity in both life and death, proving themselves to be true friends of the heart. Indeed, it was just as When Gong Yu dusted his cap, ready to go,6 Or when Jing Ke drew his sword for the thrust.7 143 Our story takes place in the Kaiyuan reign period [713–41] during the Tang dynasty. The prime minister and duke of Dai, named Guo Zhen, with the courtesy name Yuanzhen, a native of Wuyang, Hebei (Wuyang is presentday Daming County in Daming Prefecture), had a nephew, Guo Zhongxiang, who, despite his talent in both the civil as well as military arts, had received no recommendation for o‹ce, because his chivalrous spirit was often at odds with conventional codes of behavior. Anxious that he had not amounted to anything by this age, his father wrote a letter for him to take to his uncle Guo Yuanzhen in the capital, asking that he be given a start in his career. Yuanzhen said to him, “If a worthy man cannot establish a career for himself by taking the first honors in the imperial examinations, he should at least try to attain wealth and rank by proving his worth in foreign lands, as Ban Chao8 and Fu Jiezi9 did. If your ambition is to rise through family connections, how far do you expect to get?” Zhongxiang humbly voiced his agreement. About this time, reports from the frontier to the capital said that the cave-dwelling barbarians in the south were in rebellion.The fact was that after Empress Wu Zetian10 assumed power, she gave small bounties every year and big ones every three years to the barbarians in the Nine Ravines and Eighteen Caves in a bid to bribe them into submission. This system was abolished upon Emperor Xuanzong’s ascension to the throne. The barbarians, therefore, rose in revolt and raided counties and prefectures. The imperial court dispatched Li Meng as governor-general of Yaozhou (Present-day Dali and Yao’an in Yunnan were part of Yaozhou in Tang times) to lead an expedition against the rebels. Thus authorized by imperial decree, Li Meng made a special trip, before his departure, to the prime minister’s residence to bid him adieu as well as to solicit advice. Guo Yuanzhen said, “In olden times, Zhuge Liang captured Meng Huo11 seven times but released him each time, in order that the barbarian should sincerely acknowledge his defeat rather than grudgingly submit to Zhuge’s power. If you act with caution, victory will certainly be yours. My nephew Guo Zhongxiang is a capable man. I will have him follow you on this expedition, so that when you have defeated the barbarians and proven your worth, he...

Share