Taiyuan

Hongfu flees by night to Li Jing, telling him: 'I have long served Minister Yang and have seen many of the people of the world, but none like you. The dodder vine cannot grow alone; I wish to cling to a tall tree, and so I have come to you.' At the inn at Lingshi she takes the Curly-Bearded Guest as her brother.

He saw a hideous ghost with a green face and teeth jagged like a saw. It had spread a human skin on the bed and was painting it with a coloured brush; then it threw down the brush, lifted the skin, shook it out like a garment and draped it over its body, whereupon it turned into the woman.

Zhibo was killed, his state destroyed and his land divided, and he became the laughing-stock of the realm: this came of insatiable greed.

In the city they hung their pots to cook and exchanged children to eat.

This god did not deceive Zhao Wuxu; how would he fail me?

He has the bearing of dragon and phoenix and the look of sun and sky; by the time he is nearly twenty he will surely be able to save the world and bring peace to the people.

The walls are forty li around and the rebels are almost here; to start building now would be to tire ourselves before seeing the enemy.

Every subject should be like this!

I would rather go three days without food than one day without hunting.

Your honours will come later; strive on.

This child has an extraordinary look.

I look on you as a son, and you treat me as a father.

Two rulers should not trap each other.

If we now ride this momentum and strike straight at the Yuan capital, we can have it without a battle.

Guang took a stone, struck the jar and broke it; the water gushed out and the child survived.

When a gentleman serves his superior, he thinks of giving his utmost loyalty when he goes forward and of making up for his faults when he withdraws; he helps along what is good in his lord and corrects what is bad.

My parents live beneath that cloud.

Deyu, having gained office in his prime, was keen to govern well, and abolished all the old customs harmful to the people.

If we had met Governor Yuwen earlier, how would we ever have followed the rebels?

The emperor left the palace and climbed Coal Hill; gazing at the beacon fires lighting up the sky, he sighed: 'It is only my people who suffer.'

So we know that the realm does not exist to serve one man; rather one man exists to rule the realm.

He let his troops loose to kill, and princes, lords and officials submitted to slaughter with folded hands: more than thirteen hundred died.

From then on he had the ambition to set the whole realm in order.