In the chih-yüan period, the year being hsin-mao (1291),
there was a Commandant in Chien-ning
and his name was Ma Mou.
Because a band of robbers had risen in Chien-yang,
he wished to lead an army out to rape and pillage now!
He heard among the people that a family named Chang
had a daughter called Moon Maiden, beautiful and pure.
He set his mind on this young girl,
he wished to ravish her,
and so he wrongly claimed the Changs
were on the robbers' side.
Moon Maiden wanted to escape,
there was no way she could,
and so, together with girls next door,
she was defiled then.
Having had his will of her,
Ma wished to end her house:
father, mother, relatives were taken prisoner.
Of that one family, nine men and women
were all sent to their deaths!
The pain sank deep, unto the bone,
no way to cry to Heaven.
Five other people in the family
also came close to death:
they were beaten viciously,
their flesh all torn and split.
By misfortune, this family had produced a lovely girl:
and the family was destroyed through no fault of her own.
His Excellency Yang T'ien-jui
was Prefectural Judge;
he was suspicious that this affair
was not what it appeared.
His whiskers bristling with righteousness
he leapt into the fray
and insisted that Ma Mou
be implicated in the case.
Moon Maiden's name was exonerated,
her reputation cleared,
and he got the other innocents
out of the local jail.
These people's wrong — outrageous injustice —
in a single day was righted;
the documents were all sent up
to the Secretariat.
His Imperial Majesty, Son of Heaven,
was truly perspicacious:
he proclaimed that his royal decision
be announced at Heaven Gate.
" Ma Mou is to be executed for his heinous crime " ;
when people in the streets heard this,
they sighed in admiration.
The local people built a shrine
to His Excellency while he lived:
meat and wine aplenty there they offered reverently.
His Excellency's righting of a wrong
is something rarely seen:
surely, he would be promoted
and a monument be built.
Political position should be based on moral rectitude:
seniority alone can't show the man's true character.
Today, already twenty years have passed
since these events;
why has he exchanged red knee-guard
for commoner's shirt of blue.
Only with wise rulers like Kao and K'uei
will sages come forth to serve:
please chant this poem of mine for them:
The Piece on Righted Wrongs.