Overview
Gong Sui was a Governor of Bohai and Palace Official.
IdentityHistorical · Male
Other names
| Type | English | Chinese | Pinyin |
|---|
| Courtesy name |
Shaoqing |
少卿 |
Shaoqing |
Life and dates
Death
- Context died in office at advanced age
Age
Attested activity
Show 2 more source-backed claims
BC 74 to BC 49 漢世
BC 73 to BC 49 龔遂
Key source chapters
-
Book of Han, Chapter 101
Volume 89: Upright Officials
31 passages
-
Book of Northern Qi, Chapter 46
Volume 46 Biographies 38: Good Officials
1 passage
-
Book of Han, Chapter 68
Volume 58: Gongsun Hong, Bu Shi and Er Kuan
1 passage
-
Records of the Grand Historian, Chapter 112
Biographies of the Marquis of Pingjin and Zhufu
1 passage
-
History of Song, Chapter 410
Volume 410 Biographies 169: Lou Ji, Shen Huan, Shu Lin, Cao Yanyue, Fan Yingling, Xu Jingsun
1 passage
Places and affiliations
Western Han 漢
Relation Served
- Polity Han 漢 · Relation Served
- Polity Western Han 西漢 · Relation Served
- At Nanpingyang in Shanyang 山陽南平陽
Works and attributed material
Events and relationships
Cited for lenient governance
Allusion · Exemplar
Pacified bandits
Military administrative · Governor · At Bohai 渤海
Promoted agriculture
Economic · Governor
Skilled in governing the people
Administrative
· Governor
· Mode quotation
Speaker Ban Gu (班固)- Relation Served · Person Liu He (劉賀)
- Relation Colleague of · Person Wang Yang (王陽)
Show 1 more source-backed claim
Assessments and attributes
- Assessment governed the people (治民) · Mode historian-judgment
- Assessment had achievements recounted in their age · Mode historian-judgment
- Assessment had notable achievements recorded in later accounts · Mode quotation Speaker Ban Gu (班固)
- Assessment model-of-gentle-local-governance · Mode historian-judgment
- Assessment paragon of governing the people in Xu Luqings comparison of Yingling · Mode quoted-speech Speaker Xu Luqing (徐鹿卿)
Source notes
- Historicity historical
- Value historical
References in the histories
No matching passages.
Book of Northern Qi, Chapter 46Volume 46 Biographies 38: Good Officials · 1 passage
Book of Han, Chapter 68Volume 58: Gongsun Hong, Bu Shi and Er Kuan · 1 passage
孝宣承統，纂修洪業，亦講論六藝，招選茂異，而蕭望之、梁丘賀、夏侯勝、韋玄成、嚴彭祖，尹更始以儒術進，劉向，王褒以文章顯，將相則張安世、趙充國、魏相、丙吉、於定國、杜延年，治民則黃霸、王成、龔遂、鄭弘、召信臣、韓延壽、尹翁歸、趙廣漢、嚴延年、張敞之屬，皆有功跡見述於世。
Emperor Xuan inherited the succession and carried forward the great enterprise. He too expounded the Six Arts and recruited outstanding men. Xiao Wangzhi, Liangqiu He, Xiahou Sheng, Wei Xuancheng, Yan Pengzu, and Yin Gengshi advanced through Confucian learning; Liu Xiang and Wang Bao gained distinction for their writing; among the generals and chancellors were Zhang Anshi, Zhao Chongguo, Wei Xiang, Bing Ji, Yu Dingguo, and Du Yannian; and among those who governed the people were Huang Ba, Wang Cheng, Gong Sui, Zheng Hong, Shao Xinchen, Han Yanshou, Yin Wengui, Zhao Guanghan, Yan Yannian, Zhang Chang, and others. All left achievements celebrated in their age.
Book of Han, Chapter 101Volume 89: Upright Officials · 31 passages
王成、黃霸、朱邑、龔遂、鄭弘、召信臣等，所居民富，所去見思，生有榮號，死見奉祀，此廩廩庶幾德讓君子之遺風矣。
Wang Cheng, Huang Ba, Zhu Yi, Gong Sui, Zheng Hong, Shao Xinchen, and their peers left districts wealthier than they found them and were mourned when they left. Honored in life and worshipped after death, they came closest to the old ideal of the gentleman who leads by deference and virtue.
龔遂字少卿，山陽南平陽人也。
Gong Sui, courtesy name Shaoqing, came from Nanpingyang in Shanyang Commandery.
賀動作多不正，遂為人忠厚，剛毅有大節，內諫爭於王，外責傅相，引經義，陳禍福，至於涕泣，蹇蹇亡已。
Prince He's conduct was often improper. Gong Sui was loyal and blunt: he remonstrated with the prince in private, rebuked tutor and chancellor in public, quoted the classics on fortune and ruin, and wept as he pleaded without letting up.
遂入見王，涕泣膝行，左右侍御皆出涕。
Gong Sui crawled in on his knees, weeping, until even the attendants wept.
遂曰：「臣痛社稷危也！
Gong Sui answered, "I weep because the altars of state stand in peril!
王辟左右，遂曰：「大王知膠西王所以為無道亡乎？」
The prince sent everyone away. Gong Sui asked, "Do you understand how the Prince of Jiaoxi destroyed himself through villainy?"
曰：「臣聞膠西王有諛臣侯得，王所為擬於桀、紂也，得以為堯、舜也。
Gong Sui explained: "He kept a flatterer named Hou De who masked conduct worthy of Jie and Zhou with praise fit for Yao and Shun.
遂乃選郎中張安等十人侍王。
Gong Sui picked ten gentlemen, including Zhang An, to serve him.
久之，宮中數有妖怪，王以問遂，遂以為有大憂，宮室將空，語在《昌邑王傳》。
Strange omens kept appearing in the palace. When the prince asked, Gong Sui warned of grave disaster and an empty court—the full account stands in the biography of Prince He of Changyi.
王相安樂遷長樂衛尉，遂見安樂，流涕謂曰：「王立為天子，日益驕溢，諫之不復聽，今哀痛未盡，日與近臣飲食作樂，鬥虎豹，召皮軒，車九流，驅馳東西，所為悖道。
Royal tutor Anle had become commandant of the Changle palace guard. Gong Sui went to him in tears: "Our lord is emperor now and grows more arrogant by the day; he ignores every remonstrance. Mourning for the late emperor is not finished, yet he feasts and sports with favorites, pits tigers and leopards, rides out in leather-canopied chariots followed by long trains of vehicles (the text reads 'nine currents'), and races east and west—conduct that flouts every decent rule.
昌邑群臣坐陷王於惡不道，皆誅，死者二百餘人，唯遂與中尉王陽以數諫爭得減死，髡為城旦。
The Changyi ministers were condemned for leading their prince into wickedness; more than two hundred died. Only Gong Sui and commandant Wang Yang, having remonstrated often, escaped execution and were shorn for hard labor at dawn.
上選能治者，丞相、御史舉遂可用，上以為渤海太守。
The emperor sought a capable man; chancellor and chief clerk recommended Gong Sui, and he was named governor of Bohai.
時，遂年七十餘，召見，形貌短小，宣帝望見，不副所聞，心內輕焉，謂遂曰：「渤海廢亂，朕甚憂之。
Gong Sui was past seventy. At audience he looked undersized; Emperor Xuan, seeing him from afar, felt he did not match his reputation and secretly underestimated him. "Bohai lies in ruins," said the emperor, "and it weighs on me.
遂對曰：「海瀕遐遠，不沾聖化，其民困於饑寒而吏不恤，故使陛下赤子盜弄陛下之兵於潢池中耳。
Gong Sui answered: "Bohai lies far on the coast and has missed your transforming influence. The people starve while officials show no mercy, so your innocent subjects have merely borrowed your weapons to splash in a roadside puddle—no grave rebellion.
上聞遂對，甚說，答曰：「選用賢良，固欲安之也。」
Delighted by the answer, the emperor said, "We chose a worthy man precisely because we mean to pacify them."
遂曰：「臣聞治亂民猶治亂繩，不可急也；
Gong Sui continued: "They say unruly folk are like a snarled cord—you cannot yank it straight by force;
至渤海界，郡聞新太守至，發兵以迎，遂皆遣還，移書敕屬縣悉罷逐捕盜賊吏。
As he entered Bohai the district tried to greet him with armed escorts; he sent every soldier home and ordered all counties to dismiss officers tasked with hunting bandits.
遂單車獨行至府，郡中翕然，盜賊亦皆罷。
He drove alone to headquarters. The commandery fell quiet, and the outlaw bands gave up.
渤海又多劫略相隨，聞遂教令，即時解散，棄其兵弩而持鉤鋤。
Bands that had roamed together looting broke up as soon as his orders circulated, dropping bows for farm tools.
遂乃開倉廩假貧民，選用良吏，尉安牧養焉。
He opened the granaries to feed the hungry, appointed capable officers, and nursed the district back to health.
遂見齊俗奢侈，好末技，不田作，乃躬率以儉約，勸民務農桑，令口種一樹榆，百本薤、五十本蔥、一畦韭，家二母彘、五雞。
Gong Sui found Qi folk addicted to luxury and petty trades while neglecting the plow. He set the example of thrift, pushed farming and sericulture, and ordered every person to plant one elm, a hundred scallions, fifty onions, and one bed of leeks; each household was to keep two sows and five chickens.
民有帶持刀劍者，使賣劍買牛，賣刀買犢，曰：「何為帶牛佩犢！」
Anyone wearing sword or knife had to sell steel for livestock; Gong Sui said, "Why carry an ox and wear a calf at your belt?" until the saying spread.
數年，上遣使者征遂，議曹王生願從。
Some years later the emperor recalled Gong Sui to court. Wang Sheng of his deliberation office asked to accompany him.
遂不忍逆，從至京師。
Gong Sui hated to refuse him and brought him along to the capital.
會遂引入宮，王生醉，從後呼，曰：「明府且止，願有所白。」
As Gong Sui was ushered toward the palace, the drunken Wang Sheng hailed him from behind: "Governor, wait—I must speak."
遂還問其故，王生曰：「天子即問君何以治渤海，君不可有所陳對，宜曰『皆聖主之德，非小臣之力也』。」
Gong Sui turned back. Wang Sheng said, "If the emperor asks how you ruled Bohai, volunteer nothing—answer only: 'It was entirely the sagely sovereign's virtue, not this petty official's doing.'"
遂受其言。
Gong Sui agreed.
既至前，上果問以治狀，遂對如王生言。
At audience the emperor did ask about Bohai, and Gong Sui answered exactly as coached.
遂因前曰：「臣非知此，乃臣議曹教戒臣也。」
Gong Sui stepped forward: "I did not think of it myself; my clerk from the deliberation office taught me."
上以遂年老不任公卿，拜為水衡都尉，議曹王生為水衡丞，以褒顯遂云。
Deeming Gong Sui too aged for a ministerial portfolio, the emperor named him superintendent of the imperial parks and made Wang Sheng his deputy—a gesture meant to honor Gong Sui.
水衡典上林禁苑，共張宮館，為宗廟取牲，官職親近，上甚重之，以官壽卒。
The agency oversaw the Shanglin hunting preserve, supplied palace entertainments, and furnished temple victims—duties close to the throne that the emperor valued highly. Gong Sui died in office at an advanced age.
Records of the Grand Historian, Chapter 112Biographies of the Marquis of Pingjin and Zhufu · 1 passage
將相則張安世、趙充國、魏相、邴吉、于定國、杜延年，治民則黃霸、王成、龔遂、鄭弘、邵信臣、韓延壽、尹翁歸、趙廣漢之屬，皆有功跡見述於後。
Among the generals and chief ministers were Zhang Anshi, Zhao Chongguo, Wei Xiang, Bing Ji, Yu Dingguo, and Du Yannian. Among those skilled in governing the people were Huang Ba, Wang Cheng, Gong Sui, Zheng Hong, Shao Xinchen, Han Yanshou, Yin Wenggui, Zhao Guanghan, and others. All had notable achievements recorded in later accounts.
History of Song, Chapter 410Volume 410 Biographies 169: Lou Ji, Shen Huan, Shu Lin, Cao Yanyue, Fan Yingling, Xu Jingsun · 1 passage
Book of Song, Chapter 54Volume 54 Biographies 14: Kong Jigong, Yang Xuanbao, Shen Tanqing · 1 passage
Book of Song, Chapter 92Volume 92 Biographies 52: Liang Li · 1 passage