Machine transcription
and Li Chih gave the best counsel. When the troops reentered the gate of Yumen, the number of men was a little more than ten thousand and that of military horses a thousand. In this second expedition under General Erhshih, the troops were not short of food and not many died in action. However, because the generals and commissioners were greedy and encroached upon the interests of the soldiers whom they did not love, so a great number had died. On account of this successful expedition of ten thousand li against Tayuan, the Emperor pardoned the misdeeds and made the Li Ku-ang-li Knight of Haishi. The Emperor also made horseman Chao Ti, who personally killed the King of Yuehcheng, the Knight of Hsinshih, Chao Shih Sheng Kuanglu tafu (High Counsellor) Shangkuan Chieh Shaofu (Court Steward), and Li Chih Governor of Shangtang. Of the other officers, three were made high officials, more than a hundred were made feudal lords with income of 2,000 Shih (a Shih was 32 8/11 pounds) of rice, and more than a thousand were made feudal lords with income below 1,000 Shih of rice. Volunteers in the army were appointed officials above their expectations, and those who had been convinced were relieved of service. In all 40 thousand taels of gold was awarded the soldiers. The two-way journey of the Tayuan expedition took four years' time.
After the Han troops defeated Tayuan, they made Moshe the King of Tayuan, and then came away. A year and more following that, the noblemen of Tayuan accused Moshe of flattery which invited slaughter of the people, and jointly killed him. They made Shanfeng, younger brother of Mukua, the King of Tayuan and sent his son to Han as a hostage. Han appeased them by sending them awards by an envoy.
After that Han dispatched more than ten envoys to the foreign countries to the west of Tayuan to seek strange goods and to publicize Han's victory over Tayuan. Henceforth there was established a county at Chiuchuan in Tunhuang, and there were built post-stages all the way westward to the Salt River. At Luntou several hundred tillers settled down to reclaim the land and grow millet as provisions for the envoys on their way to foreign countries.
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Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting. How this was measured.
