Entry

The Supervising Secretary Tang Ding and the Messenger Gao Yin were sent as envoys to the country of Annam, to take Imperial instructions for Li Lin, the king of the country. The orders read: "I have respectfully accepted Heaven's arrangements and, in ruling all sides, always manifest the Will of Heaven and try to realize peace and tranquility. Previously, the Guang-xi defence generals memorialized that Nong Yuan-hong, the native official of your Xia Si-lang Subprefecture, attacked and killed people in An-ping Subprefecture, carried off 220 men and women, stole cattle and sheep, burnt buildings and seized 220 households from dong villages. Recently, it was again memorialized that your border people have led their forces in pillaging Ba Village in Si-ling Subprefecture, and have carried off over 40 men and women, stolen cattle and sheep and burnt buildings. How could you have not heard of this! Or perhaps your orders cannot reach to there! I am now especially sending officials to instruct you. You are to order Nong Yuan-hong and the chieftains guarding the border to return all the land, people and livestock which they have taken and you are to memorialize advice of this. I am pardoning the former transgressions and from now on all are to respect propriety and the law, and are to guard their respective borders. If they do not repent, their crimes will indeed be punished. Do not wrongly protect them and thereby commit crimes yourself!"