Replying to Taizong from Upon His Burial Mound, Murong Chui

During (Tang Emperor) Taizong’s invasion of Liaoning, he arrived at Baoding. Beside the road, there was a ghost clothed in yellow robes, standing upon a high burial mound. The spirit’s bright color was unique and different, so he dispatched a messenger to inquire about it. It replied with this poem, and when it finished speaking it disappeared. Thus it was the tomb of Murong Chui.

I formerly defeated former rulers—
The rulers of today defeat me today.
Glory is different in each generation:
What are you doing, bitterly hounding the old?

冡上答太宗
作者：慕容垂
〈太宗征辽至定州，路侧有一鬼衣黄衣立高冢上。神彩特异，遣使问之。答以此诗，言讫不见。乃慕容垂墓也。〉
我昔胜君昔，
君今胜我今。
荣华各异代，
何用苦追寻。

Okay, if I’m gonna gallop through these ghost poems, it’s time to get systematic: this is the first poem of CTP ch865, the first of the two chapters—which is, not coincidentally, the poem with the earliest identifiable date. Murong Chui, aka Later Yan Emperor Chengwu (ruled 384-396) from the early Sixteen Kingdoms era, was buried in his capital of Zhongshan, now part of modern Baoding, Hebei. Tang Emperor Taizong passed through (and pacified) the area during his 645 invasion of the northern Korean kingdom of Goguryeo. Spoiler alert: despite the flattery of the second line, Taizong lost his war.

---L.