812 t h e a n n a l s o f k i n g t’a e j o
exaggerate facts falsely or cover up evildoings, the ruler who reads their
records will certainly become upset, and that is the reason they dare not
submit the records to the ruler.”
“Nevertheless, Emperor Taizong ordered Xuanling to submit the draft of
history, and Xuanling complied with his order. Though the history com-
piled by Xuanling was called the Veritable Records and submitted to the
emperor, the words in it concealed many things. Emperor Taizong, being
wise, would not have had any problems with the history even if it were
allowed to be written truthfully, but even such a famous grand councilor as
Xuanling preferred to hide facts and avoided writing truthfully. If rulers of
later ages, on the other hand, being less wise than the emperor, wanted to
see the contemporary history, would their flattering subjects only limit
themselves to hiding facts as Xuanling did?
“I respectfully believe that Your Majesty has tried to emulate the Three
Dynasties, but recently you issued a royal decree to see the contemporary
history, and we subjects became afraid when we heard of it. Given that Tang
Taizong could not avoid being criticized by posterity for reading the draft of
history of his own age, how can Your Majesty follow the bad example left
by him?
“In the Ŭlhae year (1395), Your Majesty also wanted to see it once but
eventually changed your mind. Thus, you left a precedent in establishing
the law of an age, which will influence public opinion throughout ten thou-
sand generations. However, since you now give orders such as this, though
we are not sure, you make us wonder if you want to admonish posterity by
examining rights and wrongs in the records? If not, do you intend to correct
the mistakes by reviewing what is in the records? Or do you want to review
it so that nothing important is left out? If you want to admonish posterity,
the works of the sages in antiquity will serve your purpose since they show
how the state can be ruled properly or thrown into disarray or how it rises
and falls. Then why is it necessary for you to review the contemporary his-
tory to warn posterity? If your intention is to correct the mistakes in the
historical records, we remind you that the historiographers recorded the
facts after looking into them thoroughly by making numerous queries and
verifications. How can they deceive posterity by recording falsehood based
on rumors and speculations? If you desire to have all the facts recorded, you
have officials serving as historiographers, starting from compilers to auxil-
iaries, who produce the history drafts based on what they see and hear. Since
there are dozens of these diarists, how can it be possible that important